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A sol is the apparent interval between two successive returns of the Sun to the same meridian (sundial time) as seen by an observer on Mars. It is one of several units for timekeeping on Mars. A sol is slightly longer than an Earth day. It is approximately 24 hours, 39 minutes, 35 seconds long.
The two Viking mission landers, Mars Phoenix, the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity, InSight, and Mars 2020 Perseverance missions all count the sol on which the lander touched down as "Sol 0". Mars Pathfinder and the two Mars Exploration Rovers instead defined touchdown as "Sol 1".
Parts-per-million chart of the relative mass distribution of the Solar System, each cubelet denoting 2 × 10 24 kg. This article includes a list of the most massive known objects of the Solar System and partial lists of smaller objects by observed mean radius.
Careful observations of the 1769 transit of Venus allowed astronomers to calculate the average Earth–Sun distance as 93,726,900 miles (150,838,800 km), only 0.8% greater than the modern value. [291] Uranus, having occasionally been observed since 1690 and possibly from antiquity, was recognized to be a planet orbiting beyond Saturn by 1783. [292]
Mars hosts many enormous extinct volcanoes (the tallest is Olympus Mons, 21.9 km or 13.6 mi tall) and one of the largest canyons in the Solar System (Valles Marineris, 4,000 km or 2,500 mi long). Geologically, the planet is fairly active with marsquakes trembling underneath the ground, dust devils sweeping across the landscape, and cirrus clouds.
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 ...
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The result was a measured radius of 696,342 ± 65 kilometres (432,687 ± 40 miles). [4] Haberreiter, Schmutz & Kosovichev (2008) [1] determined the radius corresponding to the solar photosphere to be 695,660 ± 140 kilometres (432,263 ± 87 miles). This new value is consistent with helioseismic estimates; the same study showed that previous ...