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Mars has an orbit with a semimajor axis of 1.524 astronomical units (228 million km) (12.673 light minutes), and an eccentricity of 0.0934. [1][2] The planet orbits the Sun in 687 days [3] and travels 9.55 AU in doing so, [4] making the average orbital speed 24 km/s. The eccentricity is greater than that of every other planet except Mercury ...
In gravitationally bound systems, the orbital speed of an astronomical body or object (e.g. planet, moon, artificial satellite, spacecraft, or star) is the speed at which it orbits around either the barycenter (the combined center of mass) or, if one body is much more massive than the other bodies of the system combined, its speed relative to the center of mass of the most massive body.
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] Mars seen through a 16-inch amateur telescope, at 2020 opposition
Seasons. 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.
For example, as the Earth's rotational velocity is 465 m/s at the equator, a rocket launched tangentially from the Earth's equator to the east requires an initial velocity of about 10.735 km/s relative to the moving surface at the point of launch to escape whereas a rocket launched tangentially from the Earth's equator to the west requires an ...
An areostationary orbit, areosynchronous equatorial orbit (AEO), or Mars geostationary orbit is a circular areosynchronous orbit (ASO) approximately 17,032 km (10,583 mi) in altitude above the Mars equator and following the direction of Mars's rotation. An object in such an orbit has an orbital period equal to Mars's rotational period, and so ...
Synchronous orbit. Orbit of an astronomical body equal to that body's average rotational period. A synchronous orbit is an orbit in which an orbiting body (usually a satellite) has a period equal to the average rotational period of the body being orbited (usually a planet), and in the same direction of rotation as that body. [1]
A Mars-crossing asteroid (MCA, also Mars-crosser, MC) is an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mars. Some Mars-crossers numbered below 100000 are listed here. They include the two numbered Mars trojans 5261 Eureka and (101429) 1998 VF 31. Many databases, for instance the JPL Small-Body Database (JPL SBDB), only list asteroids with a ...