Mars Madness – Walt Hickey

Mars Madness

Mars is fascinating, so fascinating that FiveThirtyEight is spending a whole month just writing about it. Given that it’s March Madness — and given humanity’s longstanding tradition of hurling robots and cameras at Mars with varying degrees of success, you know, like a free throw — we wanted to figure out the winner of the ultimate Martian bracket.

Seeds and such come later, but for now, merely select the cooler Mars mission or landmark:

Which is the cooler mission or landmark?

Battle: : Mars

Olympus Mons

The tallest volcano in the solar system. It’s 374 miles in diameter, roughly the same size as Arizona, and it reaches 16 miles into the Martian sky. 

Mars 2 Lander (1971)

Attempted to land during massive dust storm and crashed into the surface.