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The resonance makes a single solar day (the length between two meridian transits of the Sun) on Mercury last exactly two Mercury years, or about 176 Earth days. [ 111 ] Mercury's orbit is inclined by 7 degrees to the plane of Earth's orbit (the ecliptic ), the largest of all eight known solar planets. [ 112 ]
Because of the retrograde rotation, the length of a solar day on Venus is significantly shorter than the sidereal day, at 116.75 Earth days (making the Venusian solar day shorter than Mercury's 176 Earth days — the 116-day figure is close to the average number of days it takes Mercury to slip underneath the Earth in its orbit [the number of ...
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]
The length of time for Mars to complete one orbit around the Sun in respect to the stars, its sidereal year, is about 686.98 Earth solar days (≈ 1.88 Earth years), or 668.5991 sols. Because of the eccentricity of Mars' orbit, the seasons are not of equal length.
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 .
There is great variation in the length of day between the planets, with Venus taking 243 days to rotate, and the giant planets only a few hours. [82] The rotational periods of exoplanets are not known, but for hot Jupiters, their proximity to their stars means that they are tidally locked (that is, their orbits are in sync with their rotations).
A similar analogy used to visualize the geologic time scale and the history of life on Earth is the Geologic Calendar. A graphical view of the Cosmic Calendar, featuring the months of the year, days of December, the final minute, and the final second
Tidal drag between the Earth and the Moon and Sun increases the length of the day and of the month (by transferring angular momentum from the rotation of the Earth to the revolution of the Moon); since the apparent mean solar day is the unit with which we measure the length of the year in civil life, the length of the year appears to decrease.