2007-05-18 10:41:03 · 12 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
All of these answers so far and not one is right?
The answer to your question of who named Mars is:
The Romans
They understood which celestial objects were planets based on their movement.
Mars is red to the naked eye...so they named it Mars after the Roman god of war.
The real question is how did they know to name Jupiter (their top god) when they had no way of knowing how big it truly was based on their observations?
2007-05-18 13:07:15 · answer #1 · answered by Edward 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I believe it was originally the Greeks, or at least they were the first to record them. They noticed the planets didn't follow the same seasonal patterns as the stars. For example every spring we face the same section of the sky at night and we see the same stars. But because the planets all have different annual orbits (mars take 687 days) they knew they were different then the stars and they made them their gods. Venus was the brightest and to them the most beautiful so they made it their goddess of love, Jupiter was the second brightest and stayed int he sky for longer periods of time so they made that one Zeus, or Jupiter as the romans later called him. Mars was third and they the greeks called him ares, the romans called him mars. The Greeks named Saturn Chrono, and leter became Saturn. And lastly was Hermes that the greeks called Mercury. The romans had the same gods, just differnt names for them. But the roman names are the ones that carried down through history.
~D
2007-05-18 18:44:46 · answer #2 · answered by Derek S 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, people don't know who discovered it. It is named after the god Mars due to it's red color, since mars was the gos of war and red is blood.
2007-05-18 19:13:38 · answer #3 · answered by chase 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and is commonly referred to as the Red Planet. The rocks, soil and sky have a red or pink hue. The distinct red color was observed by stargazers throughout history. It was given its name by the Romans in honor of their god of war. Other civilizations have had similar names. The ancient Egyptians named the planet Her Descher meaning the red one.
2007-05-18 17:50:32 · answer #4 · answered by c99challenger 3 · 2⤊ 1⤋
No, nobody knows. The classical planets (Mercury through Saturn) were discovered in prehistoric times, so their discoverers and the reasons they gave them particular names are lost to us. They have been given different names by different civilizations since then. "Mars" is the Roman god of war, and it is thought the Romans gave this name to this planet because of its blood red colour.
2007-05-18 18:37:42 · answer #5 · answered by GeoffG 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm not certain , but I believe it was astronomers in ancient Rome. Mars is taken from the name of the Roman god of war
2007-05-18 19:48:55 · answer #6 · answered by military supporter 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Mars is the roman god of war, so named because of the planet's fierce storms which engulf the entire planet. Who named it is a mystery.
2007-05-18 19:17:27 · answer #7 · answered by The Pokemaniac 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It was named after mars ( the roman god of war )
2007-05-18 17:44:53 · answer #8 · answered by (= summer iz here =) 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Uranus
2007-05-18 17:48:03 · answer #9 · answered by pellco 4 · 0⤊ 2⤋
http://www.exploringmars.com/history/early.html The Romans named it but it was discovered much earlier.
2007-05-18 17:56:27 · answer #10 · answered by mike453683 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋