Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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.
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 .
The sixteen equatorial quadrangles are the smallest, with surface areas of 4,500,000 square kilometres (1,700,000 sq mi) each, while the twelve mid-latitude quadrangles each cover 4,900,000 square kilometres (1,900,000 sq mi). The two polar quadrangles are the largest, with surface areas of 6,800,000 square kilometres (2,600,000 sq mi) each.
Mars is located 142,000,000 miles away from the Sun. Named after the Roman God of war, Mars is widely known for its blood-red color. Chinese astronomers even used to call Mars the 'fire star'.
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.
Escape speed at a distance d from the center of a spherically symmetric primary body (such as a star or a planet) with mass M is given by the formula [2] [3] = = where: G is the universal gravitational constant (G ≈ 6.67 × 10 −11 m 3 ⋅kg −1 ⋅s −2 [4])
Substituting the mass of Mars for M and the Martian sidereal day for T and solving for the semimajor axis yields a synchronous orbit radius of 20,428 km (12,693 mi) above the surface of the Mars equator. [3] [4] [5] Subtracting Mars's radius gives an orbital altitude of 17,032 km (10,583 mi). Two stable longitudes exist - 17.92°W and 167.83°E.
An areosynchronous orbit that is equatorial (in the same plane as the equator of Mars), circular, and prograde (rotating about Mars's axis in the same direction as the planet's surface) is known as an areostationary orbit (AEO). To an observer on the surface of Mars, the position of a satellite in AEO would appear to be fixed in a constant ...