Want to Live ThereWant to Live TherePathfinder found wild temperature fluctuations on the Martian surface. It also gave NASA a different temperature profile of the planet than the one compiled from observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope.
So how's the weather on Mars at the start of a typical Martian day?
In the morning your toes are comfy and your head needs a hat, say Pathfinder project scientists.
Like Earth, Mars has seasons because it is tilted on its axis in relation to the Sun. You wouldn't want to go there on summer vacation, though. Pink dust storms with winds up to 300 mph occur when the planet moves closest to the Sun. See Hubble Space Telescope pictures of the dust storms here. The long, frozen winters aren't so great, either.
Despite its warm reddish color, Mars is very cold. The temperature rarely rises above freezing and can go as low as -225 degrees Fahrenheit. On its warmer days, the temperature hovers at around zero degrees Fahrenheit. Daytime temperatures can drop as much as 212 degrees Fahrenheit at night.
The atmosphere on Mars is 96.5 percent carbon dioxide with only small amounts of oxygen. Nitrogen, carbon monoxide, argon, neon, and krypton are also present.
