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Mars. Courtesy of NASA/JPL.

Calling all Martians from across the galaxy: celebrate Mars Day this Friday at the National Air and Space Museum. The annual event pays homage to the red planet with a variety of fun and educational activities for extraterrestrials and humans alike.

Perhaps no other planet in our solar system is surrounded with as much mystery as Mars, so we have put together a list of facts to help you prepare for the party:

1. Mars features the largest volcano in the solar system. Olympus Mons is located in the Tharsis Montes region, which is the largest volcanic region on Mars, and is approximately 2,485 miles across. Volcanoes in the Tharsis region are up to 100 times larger than those anywhere on Earth.

2. Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, and both are shaped like potatoes. Named after the mythological sons of Ares, the Greek counterpart of the Roman god, Mars, the moons are among the smallest in the solar system. Because Phobos is spiraling inward and coming 3 feet 2 inches closer to Mars each century, it will either crash into Mars or break up and form a ring in about 50 million years.

3. Scientists have found proof of water on Mars. NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft found water in the form of ice below the surface of the planet. Due to the planet’s lack of an atmosphere, water simply cannot exist for very long. Channels can be found all over the planet where running water used to be.

4. Mars appears red because its surface is consists of iron-rich minerals that oxidize. That dust is kicked up into the atmosphere and gives the planet its reddish hue. Discovered in ancient times, both the Romans and Egyptians named the planet because of its color. Mars was the name used by the Romans for their god of war because of the planet’s bloodlike color. The Egyptians named the planet “Her Desher,” which means “the red one.”

5. The annual event marks the July 20, 1976 landing of Viking 1, the first spacecraft to operate on Mars. Since the first landing, many missions to Mars have failed for a variety of reasons leaving some to speculate that a “Mars Triangle”—similar to the “Bermuda Triangle”—exists.

Check out the Mars Day celebration on this Friday, July 22 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the National Air and Space Museum where NASA will announce the landing site for their next Mars rover, and where you can see an actual piece of Mars!

Balancing act: men and their big-wheeled ordinaries in one of the first bicycling touring clubs, in 1879 near Readville, Massachusetts.

As the pro cyclists in the famed Tour de France approach the Pyrenees Mountains, we suggest a break from your TV viewing of the excitement (no more media-related crashes, please!) to see where you can get your bicycle fix at the Smithsonian.

1. The Reinhardt. Fred Birchmore was a college student who really couldn’t settle down. In 1936, after his first semester studying international law at the University of Cologne, he cycled through Yugoslavia and Greece—and kept going.  He rode around the world. He later donated his bike to the National Museum of American History. It’s a one-speed, 42-pound, German-made Reinhardt, which he named Bucephalus, after Alexander the Great’s war horse. The name is fitting; this mechanical war horse traveled 25,000 miles. While the bike has been retired, Birchmore just keeps going, on a stationary bicycle. He lives in Athens, Georgia, and will turn 100 in November.

2. The St. Claire. Five years before they built the Wright Flyer, Orville and Wilbur manufactured bicycles at the Wright Cycle Company in Dayton, Ohio. A surprisingly sleek model of theirs called the St. Claire belongs to the National Air and Space Museum (along with their plane). It is one of only five bikes made by the brothers known to still exist.  Built in 1898, it sold for $42.50. The profits from Wright Cycle helped fund the brothers’ aviation pursuits.

3.  The Bicycle Shop Sign. The little guy on this charming Bicycle Shop Sign looks worried. And no wonder: his bike has no front wheel. Look at the sculpture straight on, however, and you can’t tell. Part of the Hemphill Folk Art Collection of the National Museum of American Art, the sign was carved by Louis Simon in the early 1930s. Simon, a champion motorcycle racer born in Russia in 1884, made the sculpture from wood, metal and rubber bicycle parts, marbles and metal hardware. The man’s legs go up and down on the pedals when the wheel is turned.

4.  The Overman Victoria. It’s a cold winter day in 1900 in the Washington, D.C. street scene section of the “America on the Move” exhibit at the National Museum of American History.  A mannequin dressed in a short jacket, long skirt and lace-up shoes stands next to her 1889 Overman Victoria safety bicycle. At the end of the 19th century, “safety bicycles” were marketed as being less hazardous than high wheelers, which they were replacing. Eventually “safety bicycles” became our regular “bicycles.” In the 1890s, bikes shared the road with streetcars and horse-drawn cabs. Their riders played a major role in lobbying for road improvements.

5. Wrought-iron-frame tricycle. This little trike appears in an artifact case, also at the American History Museum. In a nearby Montgomery-Ward advertisement it’s labeled a Boys’ Velocipede. Note the cow horn handlebars and suspension saddle with coil springs.  Depending on the size and wheels (rubber cost more than metal), it sold for $1.35 to $5. Girls, according to the catalog ad, would prefer to ride the Little Beauty, with a bench seat and hand controls instead of foot pedals.

6.  Capital Bikeshare. On exhibit outdoors near the National Mall museums, you’ll see more and more Washington tourists and residents riding bikes.  Part of the reason is Capital Bikeshare, a regional network started in 2010 and quickly expanding.  For Mall cycling, bikes are available (credit card needed) at Bikeshare corrals outside the Smithsonian Metro station and across the street from the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station. Happy (bike) trails.

Janice Waugh eating a cricket on the Riviera Maya, Mexico. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Associates.

Ever wondered what it would be like to travel the world alone but been too scared to try? Solo travel specialist and blogger Janice Waugh says it’s never too late to go for it. “When you travel alone, you discover who you are when nobody’s looking, you learn what you’re capable of, and it’s incredibly empowering,” she said. Waugh will join Washington Post food and travel editor Joe Yonan next week in a lecture for Smithsonian’s Resident Associate Program to discuss their tips and tricks for traveling, cooking and eating solo. We caught up with Waugh before the event to get the skinny on what to do–and what not to do–when you’re traveling alone.

1 ) Smile.

“The smile is an international symbol of being friendly, safe and open,” Waugh said. Being friendly and approachable will make locals and other tourists more likely to help you out, start a conversation, or give you advice about where to go and what to do.

2 ) Eat at the bar.

When choosing places to eat, Waugh said, pick a restaurant with a bar or communal tables that will naturally foster conversation between you and other diners. Look for welcoming places with lots of locals. “When I sit at the bar, I rarely end up without a conversation at some point over the course of the evening.”

3 ) Stay in a B&B.

Again, Waugh said, be social. Instead of a generic hotel, try a B&B where you can have breakfast with other guests and maybe make a few new friends. “If you want to kind of tuck yourself away and have some quiet time, then a hotel is going to be better, but in just about every case, a B&B will be more social,” Waugh said. If B&Bs aren’t your thing, go for a boutique hotel instead of a chain.

4 ) Stay in public.

Waugh’s number one safety tip is to stay in public when you’re traveling alone. Going into a private area, with our without others, is putting yourself in an unnecessarily risky situation, so play it safe and just don’t do it.

5 ) Try an unexpected destination.

Although Waugh recommends inexperienced solo travelers try out a destination close to home or somewhere that English is spoken to get their sea legs, she suggests those with a few more miles under their belts try somewhere a little off the beaten track. Jordan, Chile and India are all great locations for solo travelers, she said.

6 ) Don’t get drunk.

Whether you’re at a local pub or headed to a concert, keep the drinking to the minimum. “If you enjoy going out to the bar and having a few drinks when you’re at home, don’t do that when you’re on the road,” Waugh said. “You don’t have the same ability to read a room, read a person or read a situation when you’re in a different culture.”

7 ) Try a day tour.

Longer tours can stifle your wanderlust, but a day tour can be a good way to meet others and see the sights without having your whole vacation pre-scheduled for you. Waugh recommends scoping out groups of visitors on the tour and identifying the most approachable person to connect with. “Usually in that type of group, there’s the gregarious person, and you can catch their eye and they’re generally very happy to talk.”

8 ) Go to an independent coffee shop.

Although chain stores can work as well, independent coffee shops are a good place to meet locals as well as get a jolt of caffeine. “Chains tend to be a little cooler, where local coffee shops tend to be more neighborhood-based,” Waugh said. She added that you’ll often find freelance writers, who tend to be very open, curious and helpful, working there.

9 ) Don’t be flashy.

Don’t flaunt expensive jewelry or gear or wear revealing clothing. You don’t want to have a possession stolen in a place that you’re not staying permanently and might not be able to communicate easily with police. Waugh also advises dressing significantly more conservatively than you would be at home to avoid attracting unwanted attention while you’re unfamiliar with your surroundings and the local customs.

10 ) Choose a traditional pub at night.

A local pub is probably a better choice for a solo traveler than a trendy bar or flashy dance club, because it’s easier to interact with and meet others, and less likely to be full of tourists. “Most pubs have a bank of seats with tables set up in an L-shape,” Waugh said. “Sit at the short end of the ‘L’ and then you’ve got more command of the room and you can see what’s going on and who you want to talk to.”

For most people, it’s not a big deal to cross from Ohio to Indiana, Washington to Oregon, or Texas to Louisiana. For New York Times best-selling author Mark Stein however, those borders represent centuries of treaties, negotiations, personal vendettas and national pride. Stein tells the stories behind the formation of the American states in his new book, How the States Got Their Shapes Too: The People Behind the Borderlines, published by our colleagues at Smithsonian Books, and a sequel to his best-seller How the States Got Their Shapes.. Here’s a preview of the explorers, politicians and, as the case may be, pigs, that are responsible for America as we know it:

1. Mason and Dixon: During the Civil War, the phrase was popularly used to mean the line between the free states of the North and the slave states of the South, a historical connotation it retains today. Although the Mason-Dixon line is well known in America, neither of its creators, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, were American. In fact, they were accomplished British surveyors for whom the task of charting borders for the 18th-century American colonies was akin to “asking Mozart to play at the prom,” according to Stein. The pair took five years to define the boundary between Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware. And it is not just one line, it is actually three—the Mason-Dixon Lines.

Sequoyah. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

2. Sequoyah: The only state line in the United States that preserves a treaty agreement with Native Americans is the border between Arkansas and Oklahoma. Sequoyah was a Cherokee leader (and inventor of the written Cherokee language) who helped form that border as part of a delegation that journeyed to Washington, D.C., in 1828, to come to an agreement over Cherokee territory. The resulting treaty moved Arkansas’ western border eastward and forced the Cherokee to migrate west. The tribe was unhappy with the agreement, and even threatened Sequoyah with death. Their anger faded over time, however, and Sequoyah was eventually able to return to his (now slightly more western) home.

3. Brigham Young: Brigham Young was a Mormon leader who played an integral part in forming the boundaries of Utah. After the United States took control of the region following the Mexican War, Young and his followers petitioned Congress to have the area entered into the Union as the State of Deseret, which spread expansively throughout the Great Basin, incorporating parts of modern-day Wyoming to the north, Colorado and New Mexico to the east, most of Nevada and parts of California to the west and the majority of Arizona to the south. Instead, Congress created the Utah Territory, which although smaller than the proposed State of Deseret, was still much larger than modern Utah. Young served as governor of the territory from 1850 to 1857, but Utah didn’t become an official state until 1896.

4. Lyman Cutler’s Neighbor’s Pig: Lyman Cutler was a 19th-century resident of the San Juan Islands, located off the coast of Washington state. On June 15, 1859, Cutler, an American, shot a pig belonging to his British neighbor because it was irritating him. Incredibly, the incident set off a series of events that led the United States and Britain nearly to the brink of war. At the time, the ownership of the islands was disputed between the two nations. When an American general heard of the pig’s demise and saw that tensions were running high, he ordered that American troops be placed on the islands. Britain reacted, and “within eight weeks, one man’s shooting of a pig had escalated to sixty heavily fortified American troops, backed by 400 offshore reinforcements, facing British battleships aiming 167 cannons at them and transporting some 2,000 troops,” according to Stein. The standoff ended, only as the Army became distracted by events leading up to the Civil War. But it wasn’t until 12 years later, that the U.S. was finally granted possession of the islands—even then, the dispute had to be decided by an impartial party from Germany. But that’s another story.

William H. Seward. Image courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery.

5. William H. Seward: William Seward was Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln, and the man responsible for the United States’ purchase of Alaska. The Civil War was once again influential in the creation of the new state. An opponent of the war, Seward believed Alaska would strengthen the bond between the West Coast and the rest of the country. Seward hoped that the acquisition would distract from some of the tension between the North and the South. The plan obviously didn’t work, but after the war had ended, Seward continued to pursue the purchase. At 4 AM on the day that the Russians accepted the deal in 1867, Seward helped compose a treaty on the dinner table in his family home. The Senate ratified the treaty later that year and the U.S. paid $7.2 million for the state of Alaska, or a paltry $109 million in today’s dollars.

P-R-Z-E-... aw, forget it. Image courtesy of Mehgan Murphy, National Zoo

This week, we have a lot of really smart kids in town here to compete in the 2011 Scripps National Spelling Bee. The preliminaries began this morning at 8 AM EST and while we’re sure we couldn’t beat the 275 spellers in competition this year, the ATM blog team has come up with a list of words from around the Smithsonian, likely to stump even the savviest speller.

1. The P-Horse. It’s so hard to spell and pronounce that even the Zoo resorts to this nickname for the Przewalski’s Horse. Pronounced sheh-val-skee, the horse is named after 19th-century Polish naturalist Colonel Nikolai Przewalski, who found a skull of the horse and studied it in St. Petersburg. The brown-coated equine is native to eastern Europe and the Great Steppe crossing into Asia.

2. Artists—While math is the subject most commonly cited as a favorite among the spelling bee competitors this year, it doesn’t really require a lot of complicated spelling. Art or artists, rather, frequently do. The ATM staff has to be extra careful when writing about Georgia O’Keeffe (two e’s, two f’s), James McNeill Whistler (two l’s, no a) or Charles Willson (two l’s) Peale. The worst one is Eadweard Muybridge, who has way too many vowels in his first name. Check out their work at the American Art Museum and see if their art is any easier to understand than their names are to spell.

3. Volcanoes—Last year, a volcano erupted in Iceland, shutting down air traffic across Europe for days and affecting millions of passengers. Its name, the impossible to decipher Eyjafjallajökull. Considering that the bee contestants hail from around the United States, its territories and Department of Defense schools around the world, some might perchance live near one of the tough volcano names studied by the scientists at the Global Volcanism Program.

4. History—To help prepare for a spelling bee, many competitors study the origins of words. Learning about the origins of man, dinosaurs, civilizations and ancient life forms might be just as daunting. Walk around the halls of the Natural History Museum and learn more about ornithology, ichthyology, Ardipithecus ramidus, Australopithecus afarensis and Paranthropus boisei, including how to spell them. Over at American History, there’s Evel Knievel’s motorcycle and the Stephen Colbert portrait. Why is it pronounced like he’s French? Is he hiding something from us?

5. Airplanes—Some of this year’s competitors traveled long distances to arrive at the bee, including 94 who are on their very first visit to the nation’s capital. But none probably rode on airplanes with names as complicated as: De Havilland, Mikoyan-Gurevich or Messerschmitt. See what other aeronautical tongue twisters you can find at the Air and Space Museum.