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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 ...
Observations of Mars had shown that the planet appeared to move 40% faster on one side of its orbit than the other, in conflict with the Aristotelian model of uniform motion. Ptolemy modified the model of planetary motion by adding a point offset from the center of the planet's circular orbit about which the planet moves at a uniform rate of ...
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. [110]
Due to Mars's geological history, the possibility of past or present life on Mars remains of great scientific interest. Since the late 20th century, Mars has been explored by uncrewed spacecraft and rovers , with the first flyby by the Mariner 4 probe in 1965, the first orbit by the Mars 2 probe in 1971, and the first landing by the Viking 1 ...
Because of the proximity of the Mars moons to Mars, any mission to them may also be considered a mission to Mars from some perspectives. Past missions Three missions to land on Phobos have been launched; the Soviet Phobos program in the late 1980s saw the launch of Phobos 1 and Phobos 2 , while the Russian Fobos-Grunt sample return mission was ...
This is China's 2nd uncrewed space research project on Mars. It was launched with Long March 5 rocket on 23 July and the orbiter, lander and rover entered Mars orbit on 10 February 2021. The rover and lander landed on 14 May with rover deployment on 22 April 2021 and dropped a remote selfie camera on Mars on 1 June 2021 and while a deployable ...
Artist's rendition of Mars Express as seen by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor Image of Mars Express in orbit at Mars. 2001 Mars Odyssey was launched April 7, 2001 on a Delta II rocket and currently holds the record for the longest-surviving continually active spacecraft in orbit around a planet other than Earth at 23 years, 3 months and 7 days.
Mars has an axial tilt of 25.19°, quite close to the value of 23.44° for Earth, and thus Mars has seasons of spring, summer, autumn, winter as Earth does. As on Earth, the southern and northern hemispheres have summer and winter at opposing times. However, the orbit of Mars has significantly greater eccentricity than that of Earth. Therefore ...