Its dust is coated with iron oxide, a form of rust, and wind spreads that dust over almost the entire surface. Many rocks are grey beneath the coating.

Could a person breathe on Mars?

No. The atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide and its pressure is less than 1% of Earth's, so astronauts would need pressurised suits and habitats as well as protection from cold and radiation.

Was there ever water on Mars?

Yes. Valleys, deltas, lake beds and water-formed minerals show that liquid water flowed on Mars billions of years ago. Today water exists mainly as ice in the polar caps and below the surface.

Has life been found on Mars?

No life has been confirmed. Perseverance has found rocks with features that could be signs of ancient microbial life, but they might also have formed without life, and scientists would need to study samples in laboratories on Earth to be sure.

Can I explore Mars in the app?

Yes. You can land on a Martian landscape modelled on Jezero crater and explore its red dust, rocks and ancient river delta in interactive 3D.

Rusty dust, a butterscotch sky and the dried-up rivers of a younger world

Mars surface

3D landscape · Jezero crater, Mars

Land here and explore →

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, about half the width of Earth, with roughly 38% of Earth's surface gravity. Today its surface is frozen and dry, swept by dust and bathed in ultraviolet light, yet it is also the most Earth-like landscape we know of beyond our own planet, with mountains, canyons, dunes, polar ice caps and the remains of ancient rivers and lakes. In this app you can land on a Martian landscape modelled on Jezero crater and explore it in interactive 3D.

Jezero is the crater where NASA's Perseverance rover landed in February 2021. Around 45 km across, it held a lake billions of years ago, fed by a river that left behind a fan-shaped delta. Scientists chose it because ancient lake beds are good places to look for signs that life may once have existed on Mars, and Perseverance has been collecting rock samples there in the hope that they will one day be brought to Earth.

Key facts

Model site: Jezero craterAbout 45 km wide; Perseverance's landing site
Surface gravity: ≈ 38% of Earth'sA 50 kg person would weigh like 19 kg on Earth
Atmosphere: ≈ 95% carbon dioxideWith nitrogen, argon and traces of other gases
Surface pressure: Under 1% of Earth'sAbout 6 millibars on average, varying with season and altitude
Average temperature: ≈ −60°CFrom around 20°C at midday near the equator in summer to below −120°C at the poles
Length of day: 24 h 37 minA Martian solar day is called a sol
Tallest volcano: Olympus MonsAbout 22 km high, roughly two and a half times Everest
Great canyon: Valles MarinerisAbout 4,000 km long and up to around 7 km deep
Ingenuity helicopter: 72 flightsFirst powered flight on another world, 2021–2024

Regolith and the colour of Mars

Mars is covered in regolith, a layer of loose dust, sand and broken rock produced by billions of years of impacts and weathering. Much of the rock beneath is volcanic basalt, dark grey like the lava fields of Hawaiʻi or Iceland. The planet's famous red-orange colour comes from a thin coating of iron oxide, essentially rust, on fine dust grains, which wind spreads across almost the entire surface. When rovers scrape or drill into rocks, the material beneath is often grey.

Martian soil also contains salts called perchlorates, which would be toxic to people in large amounts and must be considered in plans for future crews. In some places, rovers have found sulphate minerals, clays and veins of gypsum that formed in water, giving clues about the planet's wetter past. Dark sand dunes, smooth plains and boulder-strewn crater floors complete a landscape that can look surprisingly like Earth's deserts.

Butterscotch skies and blue sunsets

The air on Mars is extremely thin, with an average surface pressure of less than 1% of Earth's, and is mostly carbon dioxide. It cannot trap much heat, so temperatures swing widely between day and night, and liquid water would quickly freeze or evaporate on most of the surface. Without a global magnetic field or thick atmosphere, the ground also receives much more radiation than Earth's surface does.

Fine dust suspended in the atmosphere colours the daytime sky a hazy butterscotch or pinkish tan. At sunset the colours reverse: the dust scatters blue light forward more efficiently, so a cool blue glow surrounds the setting Sun, as photographed by Curiosity, Perseverance and earlier missions. From the surface of Mars, Earth would appear as a bright evening or morning star.

Seasons

Mars is tilted on its axis by about 25 degrees, similar to Earth, so it has seasons. Because a Martian year lasts about 687 Earth days, each season lasts roughly twice as long as on Earth.

Dust devils and dust storms

As the Sun warms the ground, rising air can spin up into dust devils, whirlwinds that can be far taller than those on Earth and leave dark trails where they strip bright dust from the surface. Perseverance's microphones have even recorded the sound of a dust devil passing over the rover. Earlier, gusts of wind sometimes cleaned the solar panels of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, helping them last for years beyond their planned missions.

Mars also has dust storms that can grow from local events to cover whole regions, and every few Martian years, roughly, a storm grows to encircle the entire planet. A global storm in 2018 blocked so much sunlight that the solar-powered Opportunity rover lost power and fell silent after nearly 15 years. Because the air is so thin, though, even strong Martian winds would push on you far more gently than winds of the same speed on Earth.

Ancient rivers, lakes and deltas

Orbiters have mapped branching valley networks, dried-up river channels, lake basins and deltas across Mars, showing that liquid water flowed on its surface more than about three billion years ago. At that time the planet probably had a thicker atmosphere. Over time, Mars lost much of its air to space, helped by the solar wind, and its surface water froze into the ground and polar caps or escaped.

Jezero's delta is one of the clearest examples. Perseverance has studied layered sediments, rounded pebbles and boulders carried by floods, and minerals altered by water. In 2024 it examined a rock nicknamed Cheyava Falls with leopard-spot patterns, and NASA later described the sample from it as containing a potential biosignature: features that could have been made by life but might also have formed without it. Scientists stress that confirming any such sign would almost certainly need detailed study in laboratories on Earth.

Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris

Mars has some of the most extreme landforms in the Solar System. Olympus Mons, a shield volcano in the Tharsis region, rises around 22 km above the surrounding plains and is roughly 600 km wide, about the size of Poland or Arizona. Its slopes are so gentle that someone standing on them might not realise they were on a mountain at all. It grew so large partly because Mars has no moving tectonic plates, so the volcano stayed over its magma source for a very long time.

Valles Marineris, a vast system of canyons stretching about 4,000 km along the equator, would reach across the continental United States. Parts of it are around 7 km deep, several times deeper than the Grand Canyon. It formed mainly as the crust stretched and cracked, rather than being carved by a single river.

Rovers, Ingenuity and sample return

NASA's Curiosity rover landed in Gale crater in August 2012 and has spent years climbing the layered slopes of Mount Sharp, finding evidence that Gale once held long-lived lakes with conditions that could have supported microbial life. Perseverance, which landed in Jezero in February 2021, carries cameras, microphones, chemistry instruments and a drill that seals rock cores in tubes. It also tested MOXIE, a device that made small amounts of oxygen from Martian air. Both rovers were reported to be operating in 2026, though rover missions can end suddenly.

Perseverance brought along Ingenuity, a small helicopter that made the first powered, controlled flight on another planet in April 2021. Planned for just five test flights, it flew 72 times before rotor damage ended its mission in January 2024. China's Zhurong rover also explored Utopia Planitia in 2021–2022. Plans to collect Perseverance's samples and return them to Earth, a joint effort of NASA and ESA, have faced rising costs and redesigns, and as of late 2026 their timing and final form remained uncertain.

Surprising facts about Mars surface

Sunsets on Mars glow blue, because fine dust scatters blue light forward towards the observer.
The red colour of Mars is only skin deep: the rust is a thin coating on dust, and many rocks are grey inside.
Olympus Mons is so wide and gently sloped that its summit would lie beyond the horizon for someone standing on its flanks.
The Ingenuity helicopter was planned for five flights but made 72.
Perseverance carried microphones and has recorded the sounds of Martian wind, a dust devil and Ingenuity's rotors.
Because the air is so thin, a Martian wind would feel far weaker than a wind of the same speed on Earth.

Frequently asked questions

Why is Mars red?: Its dust is coated with iron oxide, a form of rust, and wind spreads that dust over almost the entire surface. Many rocks are grey beneath the coating.
Could a person breathe on Mars?: No. The atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide and its pressure is less than 1% of Earth's, so astronauts would need pressurised suits and habitats as well as protection from cold and radiation.
Was there ever water on Mars?: Yes. Valleys, deltas, lake beds and water-formed minerals show that liquid water flowed on Mars billions of years ago. Today water exists mainly as ice in the polar caps and below the surface.
Has life been found on Mars?: No life has been confirmed. Perseverance has found rocks with features that could be signs of ancient microbial life, but they might also have formed without life, and scientists would need to study samples in laboratories on Earth to be sure.
Can I explore Mars in the app?: Yes. You can land on a Martian landscape modelled on Jezero crater and explore its red dust, rocks and ancient river delta in interactive 3D.

Keep exploring

The landscapes in Ember’s Universe are procedural 3D scenes modelled on real places. The landforms, plants and light follow the real thing, but the details are generated, not mapped.

Sources