The Cold Desert Planet: teacher key

Mars, grade 7 edition, written for 7th grade. Mars has thin air, buried ice and the biggest volcano in the Solar System. Read what spacecraft have found there and what happened to its air.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. Which planet is closer to the Sun, Earth or Mars?
   • Mars
   • Earth (answer)
   • They are the same
2. Ingenuity was built for five test flights. How many more flights than that did it make?
   • 67 (answer)
   • 72
   • 77
3. What did Mariner 9 do in 1971?
   • Flew past Mars once
   • Landed on Mars
   • Became the first spacecraft to orbit another planet (answer)
4. What did scientists conclude stripped away most of the air Mars once had?
   • Volcanoes
   • The solar wind and the Sun's radiation (answer)
   • Dust storms
5. What did MOXIE make from carbon dioxide?
   • Water
   • Oxygen (answer)
   • Ice
6. What does flyby mean?
   • A pass by a planet without landing (answer)
   • A very fast storm
   • A kind of crater

Words

• millibars: air pressure units
• magnetic: like a magnet
• flyby: a pass by
• orbiter: circling ship