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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.
Mars Polar Lander / Deep Space 2: Mars Polar Lander: 3 January 1999: NASA United States: Lander Spacecraft failure Failed to function after landing Delta II 7425: Deep Space 2: Penetrator Spacecraft failure No data transmitted after deployment from MPL. Deep Space 2: Penetrator Spacecraft failure 33 Mars Odyssey: Mars Odyssey: 7 April 2001 ...
The zodiac constellations of Mars's ecliptic are almost the same as those of Earth — after all, the two ecliptic planes only have a mutual inclination of 1.85° — but on Mars, the Sun spends 6 days in the constellation Cetus, leaving and re-entering Pisces as it does so, making a total of 14 zodiacal constellations.
Thus, the Sun occupies 0.00001% (1 part in 10 7) of the volume of a sphere with a radius the size of Earth's orbit, whereas Earth's volume is roughly 1 millionth (10 −6) that of the Sun. Jupiter, the largest planet, is 5.2 AU from the Sun and has a radius of 71,000 km (0.00047 AU; 44,000 mi), whereas the most distant planet, Neptune, is 30 AU ...
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 ...
The Solar System is one of many planetary systems in the galaxy. [1] [2] The planetary system that contains Earth is named the "Solar" System. The word "solar" is derived from the Latin word for Sun, Sol (genitive Solis). Anything related to the Sun is called "solar": for example, stellar wind from the Sun is called solar wind.
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has been used to perform systematic studies of Mars [91] and has taken the highest resolution images of Mars ever captured from Earth. [92] This telescope can produce useful images of the planet when it is at an angular distance of at least 50° from the Sun.
All planets orbit the Sun in elliptical orbits (image on the right) and not perfectly circular orbits. [72] The radius vector joining the planet and the Sun has an equal area in equal periods. [73] The square of the period of the planet (one revolution around the Sun) is proportional to the cube of the average distance from the Sun. [74]