Mars, a small borough located in Butler County, Pennsylvania, United States, has a flying saucer type structure sitting in the town square and also has a school with nickname the Fighting Planets.

Now the borough officials are planning to celebrate its first Martian New Year celebration on the eve of June 19 and on June 20 to coincide with that planet's actual New Year.

Mayor Gregg Hartung said in a statement that the Mars Historical Society earlier decided to discontinue its traditional New Year's celebration because of disinterest and frequent inclement winter weather.

He further said he even contacted the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and found that each Mars year lasts the equivalent of two earth years because it takes the planet twice as long to revolve around the sun.

He spoke to someone at NASA regarding the Mars New Year. The space agency assigned Mars a liaison and promised exhibits and personnel for the two-day event.

Three NASA facilities are involved including the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif., the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and the group that actually launches the rockets to Mars.

Mr. Hartung said, "Three parts of NASA coming together to bring things to Mars, Pennsylvania, to celebrate Mars' new year. NASA has done great - way beyond what we expected".

The space agency will have exhibits about Mars, an inflatable Mars Rover, a three-dimensional panorama of the red planet and an eight-wheeled rover.

The attendees of the event will be Jim Green, the director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, Julielynn Wong of the Johnson Space Center and April Lanotte, a Mars Area High School graduate who works for NASA.