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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 ...
While Venus approaches Earth the closest, Mercury approaches Earth more often the closest of all planets. [11] That said, Venus and Earth still have the lowest gravitational potential difference between them than to any other planet, needing the lowest delta-v to transfer between them, than to any other planet from them. [12] [13]
Over the period 4–6 February 1962, in a rare series of events, Mercury and Venus reached conjunction as observed from the Earth, followed by Venus and Jupiter, then by Mars and Saturn. Conjunctions took place between the Moon and, in turn, Mars, Saturn, the Sun, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter. Mercury also reached inferior conjunction with the Sun.
Consequently, Venus transits above Earth only occur when an inferior conjunction takes place during some days of June or December, the time where the orbits of Venus and Earth cross a straight line with the Sun. [185] This results in Venus transiting above Earth in a sequence of currently 8 years, 105.5 years, 8 years and 121.5 years, forming ...
Conjunction of Mercury and Venus, appearing above the Moon, at the Paranal Observatory.. This is a list of the Solar System's recent planetary conjunctions (in other words, when two planets look close together) for the period 2005–2020.
The period depends on the relative angular velocity of Earth and the planet, as seen from the Sun. The time it takes to complete this period is the synodic period of the planet. Let T be the period (for example the time between two greatest eastern elongations), ω be the relative angular velocity, ω e Earth's angular velocity and ω p the ...
The Venusian diameter of about 7,500 miles (12,000 km) is just a tad smaller than Earth's 7,900 miles (12,750 km). "Venus and Earth are often called sister planets because of their similarities in ...
The reason it is every six conjunctions instead of every three is that 119.16 years is closer to a whole number of years than 119.16 / 2 = 59.58 is, so Earth will be closer to the same position in its orbit and conjunctions will appear more similar. All series will have progressions where conjunctions gradually shift from only visible ...