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Apparent sizes of the moons of Mars, Deimos and Phobos, and the Moon as viewed from the surface of their respective planets (Mars' moons imaged by the Curiosity rover, 1 August 2013) Size comparison between Phobos, Deimos and the Moon (right) If viewed from Mars's surface near its equator, a full Phobos would look about one-third as big as a ...
[4] [5] Earth was never formally 'discovered' because it was never an unrecognized entity by humans. However, its shared identity with other bodies as a "planet" is a historically recent discovery. The Earth's position in the Solar System was correctly described in the heliocentric model proposed by Aristarchus of Samos. [6] Moon: Earth I
From left: Mercury, Venus, Earth, the Moon, Mars and Ceres.) Mars is approximately half the diameter of Earth, with a surface area only slightly less than the total area of Earth's dry land. [2] Mars is less dense than Earth, having about 15% of Earth's volume and 11% of Earth's mass, resulting in about 38% of Earth's surface gravity.
The Moon's heavily cratered far-side. The origin of the Moon is usually explained by a Mars-sized body striking the Earth, creating a debris ring that eventually collected into a single natural satellite, the Moon, but there are a number of variations on this giant-impact hypothesis, as well as alternative explanations, and research continues into how the Moon came to be formed.
The English proper name for Earth's natural satellite is typically written as Moon, with a capital M. [19] [20] The noun moon is derived from Old English mōna, which stems from Proto-Germanic *mēnōn, [21] which in turn comes from Proto-Indo-European *mēnsis 'month' [22] (from earlier *mēnōt, genitive *mēneses) which may be related to the verb 'measure' (of time).
1997 – Mars Pathfinder deploys on Mars the first rover to operate outside the Earth–Moon system, the Sojourner, which conducts many experiments on the Martian surface, both teleoperated and semi-autonomous. [217] 2000 – NEAR Shoemaker probe provides the first detailed images of a near-Earth asteroid, Eros. [218]
Numerous attempts [3] [4] [5] have been made over the years to determine an absolute Martian chronology (timeline) by comparing estimated impact cratering rates for Mars to those on the Moon. If the rate of impact crater formation on Mars by crater size per unit area over geologic time (the production rate or flux) is known with precision, then ...
In 1966, the Moon became the first Solar System body beyond Earth to be orbited by an artificial satellite , followed by Mars in 1971 , Venus in 1975 , Jupiter in 1995 , the asteroid Eros in 2000 (NEAR Shoemaker), Saturn in 2004 (Cassini–Huygens), and Mercury and Vesta in 2011 (MESSENGER and Dawn respectively).