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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 60,000 years (57,617 BC). The record minimum distance between Earth and Mars in 2729 will stand at 55.65 million km.
At their furthest Mars and Earth can be as far as 401 million km (249 million mi) apart. [191] Mars comes into opposition from Earth every 2.1 years. The planets come into opposition near Mars's perihelion in 2003, 2018 and 2035, with the 2020 and 2033 events being particularly close to perihelic opposition. [192] [193] [194]
On 21 March 1963, when the spacecraft was at a distance of 106,760,000 km from Earth, on its way to Mars, communications ceased due to failure of its antenna orientation system. [44] [45] In 1964, both Soviet probe launches, of Zond 1964A on June 4, and Zond 2 on November 30, (part of the Zond program), resulted in failures. Zond 1964A had a ...
The atmosphere of Mars is colder than Earth’s owing to the larger distance from the Sun, receiving less solar energy and has a lower effective temperature, which is about 210 K (−63 °C; −82 °F). [2] The average surface emission temperature of Mars is just 215 K (−58 °C; −73 °F), which is comparable to inland Antarctica.
The maximum angular separation of the Earth and Moon varies considerably according to the relative distance between the Earth and Mars: it is about 25′ when Earth is closest to Mars (near inferior conjunction) but only about 3.5′ when the Earth is farthest from Mars (near superior conjunction). For comparison, the apparent diameter of the ...
In a review of 93 Mars studies, 24 used aerocapture for Mars or Earth return. [17] One of the considerations for using aerocapture on crewed missions is a limit on the maximum force experienced by the astronauts. The current scientific consensus is that 5 g, or five times Earth gravity, is the maximum allowable deceleration. [17]
It communicates through the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) to receive routine commands and to transmit data to Earth. Real-time distance and velocity data are provided by NASA and JPL. [4] At a distance of 164.0 AU (24.5 billion km; 15.2 billion mi) from Earth as of September 2024, [4] it is the most distant human-made object from Earth. [5]
Olympus Mons (/ əˌlɪmpəs ˈmɒnz, oʊ -/; [4] Latin for ' Mount Olympus ') is a large shield volcano on Mars. It is over 21.9 km (13.6 mi; 72,000 ft) high as measured by the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA), [5] about 2.5 times the elevation of Mount Everest above sea level. It is Mars's tallest volcano, its tallest planetary mountain ...