Mars exploration. Artwork of Martian explorers and their vehicles and equipment on the surface of Mars. The lander spacecraft is at centre, with plants being grown under a dome at lower right. A wheeled rover (centre left) and a delta-wing glider aircraft (upper centre) are being used to explore the area. Humans require protective suits and sealed vehicles to explore Mars. This is because the thin atmosphere is nearly all carbon dioxide, and the freezing surface temperature ranges from minus 89 to minus 31 degrees Celsius. Mars has no surface water and is a rocky desert world. It has a gravity that is about a third of that of Earth.