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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 ...
Several factors make placing a spacecraft into an areostationary orbit more difficult than a geostationary orbit. Since the areostationary orbit lies between Mars's two natural satellites, Phobos (semi-major axis: 9,376 km) and Deimos (semi-major axis: 23,463 km), any satellites in the orbit will suffer increased orbital station keeping costs due to unwanted orbital resonance effects.
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.
The Mars Global Surveyor, active from 1997 to 2006, was the first spacecraft able to image Mars in high enough resolution to detect new impacts, with a resolution of up to 1.5 meters (4.9 ft). The first detected impact, a 14.4-meter (47 ft)-diameter crater in southern Lucus Planum , happened between 27 January 2000, and 19 March 2001. [ 2 ]
Mars is much less tectonically active than Earth, and marsquakes are unlikely to have provided seismic waves of the required magnitude. [10] Most sizable craters on Mars date to the Late Heavy Bombardment , 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago (the Noachian period), and are older than the landslide deposits in Valles Marineris.
[31] [32] Mars has twice as much iron oxide in its outer layer as Earth does, despite their supposed similar origin. It is thought that Earth, being hotter, transported much of the iron downwards in the 1,800 kilometres (1,118 mi) deep, 3,200 °C (5,792 °F ), lava seas of the early planet, while Mars, with a lower lava temperature of 2,200 °C ...
Generalised geological map of Mars [1] Mars as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. The geology of Mars is the scientific study of the surface, crust, and interior of the planet Mars. It emphasizes the composition, structure, history, and physical processes that shape the planet. It is analogous to the field of terrestrial geology.
The asteroid and comet belts orbit the Sun from the inner rocky planets into outer parts of the Solar System, interstellar space. [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]