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The same methodology was later applied to the Moon [1] and then to Mars. [2] Another stratigraphic principle used on planets where impact craters are well preserved is that of crater number density. The number of craters greater than a given size per unit surface area (usually a million km 2) provides a relative age for that surface. Heavily ...
Mars's average distance from the Sun is roughly 230 million km (143 million mi), and its orbital period is 687 (Earth) days. The solar day (or sol) on Mars is only slightly longer than an Earth day: 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. [185] A Martian year is equal to 1.8809 Earth years, or 1 year, 320 days, and 18.2 hours. [2]
Over 42,000 impact craters greater than 5 km in diameter have been catalogued on Mars, [51] and the number of smaller craters is probably innumerable. The density of craters on Mars is highest in the southern hemisphere, south of the dichotomy boundary. This is where most of the large craters and basins are located.
Extra-close oppositions of Mars happen every 15 to 17 years, when we pass between Mars and the Sun around the time of its perihelion (closest point to the Sun in orbit). The minimum distance between Earth and Mars has been declining over the years, and in 2003 the minimum distance was 55.76 million km, nearer than any such encounter in almost ...
The bottom of the Jezero Crater – believed to have formed 3.9 billion years ago from a massive impact – is considered to be among the most promising areas on Mars to search for evidence of ...
A Martian year is approximately 668.6 sols, equivalent to approximately 687 Earth days [1] or 1.88 Earth years. The sol was adopted in 1976 during the Viking Lander missions and is a measure of time mainly used by NASA when, for example, scheduling the use of a Mars rover .
The difference between Mars's highest and lowest points is nearly 30 km (from the top of Olympus Mons at an altitude of 21.2 km to Badwater Crater at the bottom of the Hellas impact basin at an altitude of 8.2 km below the datum).
If it feels like your week has been dragging on forever, consider this — a volcano on Mars once erupted for 2 billion years straight, which is nearly half of the planet's 4.5 billion-year lifetime.