What Is The Gravity On Mars?
QUICK ANSWER
Mars has a surface gravity of 3.71 m/s², about 38 percent of Earth's gravity (9.81 m/s²). A 150-pound person on Earth would weigh about 57 pounds on Mars. The lower gravity affects everything from how high you could jump to how thin Mars's atmosphere is.
Mars's gravity is roughly a third of Earth's. The number sounds small until you think about what it would actually feel like to live in: heavier than the Moon, much lighter than home, with consequences that go beyond the bathroom scale.
How strong is Mars's gravity exactly?
According to NASA, Mars has a surface gravity of 3.71 m/s², compared to Earth's 9.81 m/s². That puts Mars gravity at about 38 percent of Earth's. Mars's gravity is significantly stronger than the Moon's (which is only about 17 percent of Earth's) but much weaker than Venus's (about 91 percent). Among rocky planets, Mars has the second-weakest surface gravity after Mercury.
How much would I weigh on Mars?
Take your Earth weight and multiply by 0.38. A 150-pound person would weigh about 57 pounds on Mars. A 200-pound person would weigh about 76 pounds. The reason isn't that Mars makes you smaller; gravity is what we measure as weight, and weaker gravity means you press down with less force. Your mass (the amount of matter making up your body) stays the same. You'd still take up the same amount of room and have the same amount of stuff inside you.
What would lower gravity feel like?
Strange and exciting at first, probably unsettling over time. You could jump nearly three times higher than on Earth. Throwing a ball would send it much farther. Picking up heavy objects would feel almost effortless. But long-term, low gravity is a health concern: human bodies evolved for Earth gravity, and astronauts who spend months in lower gravity experience muscle atrophy, bone density loss, and other physiological changes. We don't yet know whether humans can live in Mars-level gravity long-term without serious health effects.
Why is Mars's gravity weaker than Earth's?
Mars is smaller and less dense. Gravity depends on a planet's mass and the distance from its center. Mars has about 11 percent of Earth's mass and a diameter only about 53 percent of Earth's. Even though Mars is closer to its center on the surface (because it's smaller), the lower total mass wins out. Mars's lower gravity is also one of the reasons it can't hold onto a thick atmosphere; lighter gases escape into space because the planet's pull isn't strong enough to keep them anchored.
Mars's gravity is about 38 percent of Earth's, weak enough that you could leap impressively but strong enough to be recognizable as gravity. The lower pull has cascading effects on everything from atmospheric retention to human physiology, which makes it one of the central challenges for any future Mars settlement.
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