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[16] [17] [18] An astronomical unit, or AU, is the distance from Earth to the Sun, which is approximately 150 billion meters (93 million miles). [19] Small Solar System objects are classified by their orbits: [20] [21] Main Asteroid belt (main belt), between Mars and Jupiter, in near circular orbit, 2.2 to 3.2 AU
Mars is located closer to the asteroid belt, so it has an increased chance of being struck by materials from that source. Mars is more likely to be struck by short-period comets, i.e., those that lie within the orbit of Jupiter. [103] Martian craters can have a morphology that suggests the ground became wet after the meteor impact. [104]
By far the largest object within the belt is the dwarf planet Ceres. The total mass of the asteroid belt is significantly less than Pluto's, and roughly twice that of Pluto's moon Charon. The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter ...
The closest in the past 1,000 years was in 1761, when Mars and Jupiter appeared to the naked eye as a single bright object, according to Giorgini. Looking ahead, the year 2348 will be almost as close.
Average distance of Earth's orbit from the Sun (sunlight travels for 8 minutes and 19 seconds before reaching Earth) – Mars: 1.52 – Average distance from the Sun – Jupiter: 5.2 – Average distance from the Sun – Light-hour: 7.2 – Distance light travels in one hour – Saturn: 9.5 – Average distance from the Sun – Uranus: 19.2 ...
Jupiter is usually the fourth-brightest object in the sky (after the Sun, the Moon, and Venus), [102] although at opposition Mars can appear brighter than Jupiter. Depending on Jupiter's position with respect to the Earth, it can vary in visual magnitude from as bright as −2.94 at opposition down to −1.66 during conjunction with the Sun ...
Jupiter might have shaped the Solar System on its grand tack. In planetary astronomy, the grand tack hypothesis proposes that Jupiter formed at a distance of 3.5 AU from the Sun, then migrated inward to 1.5 AU, before reversing course due to capturing Saturn in an orbital resonance, eventually halting near its current orbit at 5.2 AU.
The spacecraft recorded important heliophysics data in early August 1972 by registering a solar shock wave when it was at a distance of 2.2 AU (330 million km; 200 million mi). [38] On July 15, 1972, Pioneer 10 was the first spacecraft to enter the asteroid belt, [4] located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The project planners expected ...