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Mars comes closer to Earth more than any other planet save Venus at its nearest—56 million km is the closest distance between Mars and Earth, whereas the closest Venus comes to Earth is 40 million km. Mars comes closest to Earth every other year, around the time of its opposition, when Earth is sweeping between the Sun and Mars. Extra-close ...
Substituting the mass of Mars for M and the Martian sidereal day for T and solving for the semimajor axis yields a synchronous orbit radius of 20,428 km (12,693 mi) above the surface of the Mars equator. [3] [4] [5] Subtracting Mars's radius gives an orbital altitude of 17,032 km (10,583 mi). Two stable longitudes exist - 17.92°W and 167.83°E.
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 ]
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).
The distance traveled, under constant proper acceleration, from the point of view of Earth as a function of the traveler's time is expressed by the coordinate distance x as a function of proper time τ at constant proper acceleration a. It is given by: [8] [9]
For example, the peak discharge required to carve the 28-km-wide Ares Vallis is estimated to have been 14 million cubic metres (500 million cu ft) per second, over ten thousand times the average discharge of the Mississippi River. [41] Mars Orbital Laser Altimeter (MOLA) derived image of Planum Boreum. Vertical exaggeration is extreme.
The average duration of the day-night cycle on Mars — i.e., a Martian day — is 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35.244 seconds, [3] equivalent to 1.02749125 Earth days. [4] The sidereal rotational period of Mars—its rotation compared to the fixed stars—is 24 hours, 37 minutes and 22.66 seconds. [4]