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Mars hoax. The Moon and Mars on August 27, 2005, showing Mars to be much smaller. The Mars hoax was a hoax circulated by e-mail that began in 2003, that claimed that Mars would look as large as the full Moon to the naked eye on August 27, 2003. The hoax has since resurfaced each time before Mars is at its closest to Earth, about every 26 months.
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. The surface of Mars is orange-red because it is covered in iron (III) oxide dust, giving it the nickname " the Red Planet ". [22][23] Mars is among the brightest objects in Earth's sky, and its high-contrast albedo features have made it a common subject for telescope viewing.
In astronomy, a conjunction is an event, defined only when using either an equatorial or an ecliptic celestial coordinate system, in which any two astronomical objects (e.g. asteroids, moons, planets, stars) have the same celestial longitude, normally as when observed from the Earth (geocentric). In the case of a geocentric conjunction of two ...
This is a timeline of Solar System exploration ordering events in the exploration of the Solar System by date of spacecraft launch. It includes: All spacecraft that have left Earth orbit for the purposes of Solar System exploration (or were launched with that intention but failed), including lunar probes. A small number of pioneering or notable ...
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a multipurpose spacecraft designed to conduct reconnaissance and exploration of Mars from orbit. The US$720 million spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin under the supervision of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, launched August 12, 2005, and entered Mars orbit on March 10, 2006. [100]
Areography, also known as the geography of Mars, is a subfield of planetary science that entails the delineation and characterization of regions on Mars. [1][2][3] Areography is mainly focused on what is called physical geography on Earth; that is the distribution of physical features across Mars and their cartographic representations.
Timeline of Mars Science Laboratory. Curiosity rover on Mars (5 August 2015) The Mars Science Laboratory and its rover, Curiosity, were launched from Earth on 26 November 2011. As of October 21, 2024, Curiosity has been on the planet Mars for 4340 sols (4459 total days; 12 years, 76 days) since landing on 6 August 2012. (See Current status.)
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 ...