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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 ...
Vesta (radius 262.7 ± 0.1 km), the second-largest asteroid, appears to have a differentiated interior and therefore likely was once a dwarf planet, but it is no longer very round today. [74] Pallas (radius 255.5 ± 2 km ), the third-largest asteroid, appears never to have completed differentiation and likewise has an irregular shape.
Mars without (on left) and with a global dust storm in July 2001 (on right), including different visible water ice cloud covers, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. Mars has the largest dust storms in the Solar System, reaching speeds of over 160 km/h (100 mph). These can vary from a storm over a small area, to gigantic storms that cover the ...
The gravitational constant GM (μ) for Mars has the value of 42 830 km 3 s −2, its equatorial radius is 3 389.50 km and the known rotational period (T) of the planet is 1.025 956 76 Earth days (88 642.66 s). Using these values, Mars' orbital altitude is equal to 17 039 km. [73]
For example, if a TNO is incorrectly assumed to have a mass of 3.59 × 10 20 kg based on a radius of 350 km with a density of 2 g/cm 3 but is later discovered to have a radius of only 175 km with a density of 0.5 g/cm 3, its true mass would be only 1.12 × 10 19 kg.
65 km/h (40 mph) Mars: 0.3895 3.728 12.23 7.3 s: 98 km/h (61 mph) Ceres: 0.029 0.28 0.92 26.7 s: 27 km/h (17 mph) Jupiter: 2.640 25.93 85.1 2.8 s: 259 km/h (161 mph) Io: 0.182 1.789 5.87 10.6 s: 68 km/h (42 mph) Europa: 0.134 1.314 4.31 12.3 s: 58 km/h (36 mph) Ganymede: 0.145 1.426 4.68 11.8 s: 61 km/h (38 mph) Callisto: 0.126 1.24 4.1 12.7 s ...
where G is the universal constant of gravitation (commonly taken as G = 6.674 × 10 −11 m 3 kg −1 s −2), [10] M is the mass of Mars (most updated value: 6.41693 × 10 23 kg), [11] m is the mass of the satellite, r is the distance between Mars and the satellite, and is the angular velocity of the satellite, which is also equivalent to (T ...
Phobos is a small, irregularly shaped object with a mean radius of 11 km (7 mi). It orbits 6,000 km (3,700 mi) from the Martian surface, closer to its primary body than any other known natural satellite to a planet. It orbits Mars much faster than Mars rotates and completes an orbit in just 7 hours and 39 minutes.