Words that start with M

Maggots are the young form of the fly. Maggots only eat food that is no longer fresh, such as rotten fruit or meat. They are usually found inside dead animals. Flys in your house will lay eggs on any food you leave out, and their eggs will hatch into maggots. This is why it is not good to have flies inside your house.

A mare is a female horse. Horses have been used by people for thousands of years. People ride them and use them to pull carts and ploughs. Horses were the most common way of travelling before cars were invented.

Horses come in a variety of sizes, from ponies that children ride up to big cart horses that are used to pull very heavy loads. A male horse is called a stallion and a baby horse is called a foal.

Marmalade is a way of preserving citrus fruits like oranges and lemons. Marmalade made in the same way as jam, but jam is a name for preserved fruits that are not citrus.

Mars is a small rocky planet with ice caps on its poles. It has many volcanoes and is occasionally covered by dust storms. Mars is the fourth planet from the sun.

Mars is 227,936,640km from the Sun.
Its radius is 3,397km.

Image sourced from NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mercury is a small, rocky planet. It is the closest planet to the sun. During the day it can reach 467 degrees Celsius on the surface of Mercury, but at night it can drop to -170 degrees Celsius.

Mercury is 57,909,175km from the Sun.
Its radius is 2439.7 km.

Image sourced from NASA/JPL-Caltech