Mars, the Two-Faced Planet

Of all the planets, there's one I always come back to: Mars. Ever since I studied astronomy, every time I find it in the night sky, that orange dot that doesn't twinkle like the stars, I feel the same thing. It's the planet most like our own and, at the same time, one of the most mysterious. Today I want to tell you why it fascinates me so much.

Less red than we imagine

From Earth, Mars looks red. That's why the Romans named it after their god of war. Its color comes from the iron oxide dust that covers its surface: Mars is, quite literally, rusty.

But up close, Mars is less red than we imagine. The images sent back by the rovers show shades of ochre, caramel, cinnamon and golden brown. And when they drill into the ground, gray rock appears beneath that layer of dust. Red on the outside, dark on the inside.

A planet split in two

Mars also keeps a secret that I find one of the most beautiful things in astronomy: it's divided in two. Scientists call it the Martian dichotomy.

• The southern hemisphere is made up of ancient highlands covered in craters, a landscape that has barely changed in billions of years.
• The northern hemisphere is made up of low, smooth plains, several kilometers below the southern highlands. It's a younger surface, as if someone had erased its history.

It's as if the planet had two faces: one old and marked by time, the other smooth and new.

A world of contrasts

The more I learn about Mars, the more contrasts I find. It's red on the outside and dark on the inside, old in the south and young in the north. It has the tallest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons, around 22 km (14 miles) high, and a canyon, Valles Marineris, so long that on Earth it would stretch almost from coast to coast across the United States. It's the one you can see in the cover image.

And it has a sky that seems the opposite of ours: pinkish by day, the color of the dust floating in the air, and blue around the Sun at sunset. Imagine watching a blue sunset. To me, it's pure poetry.

An unsolved mystery

The most fascinating part is that no one knows for sure why Mars is divided. Maybe it was the impact of a giant asteroid early in its history. Maybe it was changes deep inside the planet, in the heat moving beneath its crust. Both ideas are still on the table.

Mars is a divided world that still holds the memory of its past, and we're still trying to read it. For me, that's where its charm lies: in everything we don't yet know.

Phobos and Deimos, the two moons of Mars

Mars doesn't travel alone. It's accompanied by two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos, which look nothing like our Moon. They aren't round but irregular, like two raw stones floating around it. Phobos is about 22 km (14 miles) across and Deimos barely 12 (7 miles).

Their names come from Greek mythology. Phobos (fear) and Deimos (dread) were the sons of Ares, the god of war, and rode with him into battle. I can't think of better company for the red planet.

They were discovered by astronomer Asaph Hall in August 1877. But the most curious part is that, a century and a half earlier, Jonathan Swift had already written in Gulliver's Travels that Mars had two moons. Pure coincidence, and one of my favorite anecdotes.

Phobos orbits so close to Mars that it circles the planet three times a day. From the surface, you'd see it rise in the west and set in the east, the opposite of our Moon. It's also slowly getting closer: in tens of millions of years it will either crash into Mars or break apart into a ring of dust and rock. Deimos, on the other hand, is farther away and drifts across the Martian sky very slowly.

No one knows for sure where they came from, either. They may be asteroids captured by Mars's gravity, or debris from an ancient impact. Yet another mystery.

Mars, turned into jewelry

I'd been wanting to make a piece that told this whole story for a long time, and that's how the Mars ring was born. It's an 18k gold ring in a brutalist style, with a rough, molten surface that recalls the Martian terrain. At its center, a large raw ruby in deep, intense red represents Mars. Beside it, two small sapphires, also raw, are its two moons, Phobos and Deimos. None of the stones are cut or polished: I wanted them to keep their natural, irregular shape, like the rocks of a planet and like its moons.

It's a special piece, one you won't find in the shop. Each one is unique, because no two raw stones are alike. If you're interested, or would like a similar piece made just for you, message me on WhatsApp or through the contact page and I'll tell you all about it.

And next time you look up and see an orange dot that doesn't twinkle, say hello from me.

María del Pino