Mars has a rotational period of 24 hours and 37 minutes and revolution period about the sun of 687 days.  Mars diameter of 6800 km is about half that of Earth.  Mars is easily observed from Earth, yet it was difficult in the past to observe from Earth because of turbulence in the Martian atmosphere and ours.  The animation to the right shows a sequence of Hubble Space Telescope images of the Martian surface.