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Mars's average distance from the Sun is roughly 230 million km (143 million mi), and its orbital period is 687 (Earth) days. The solar day (or sol) on Mars is only slightly longer than an Earth day: 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. [185] A Martian year is equal to 1.8809 Earth years, or 1 year, 320 days, and 18.2 hours. [2]
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 astronomical unit (symbol: au[1][2][3][4] or AU) is a unit of length defined to be exactly equal to 149,597,870,700 m. [5] Historically, the astronomical unit was conceived as the average Earth-Sun distance (the average of Earth's aphelion and perihelion), before its modern redefinition in 2012. The astronomical unit is used primarily for ...
Solar radius is a unit of distance used to express the size of stars in astronomy relative to the Sun. The solar radius is usually defined as the radius to the layer in the Sun 's photosphere where the optical depth equals 2/3: [1] 695,700 kilometres (432,300 miles) is approximately 10 times the average radius of Jupiter, 109 times the radius ...
The following is a list of Solar System objects by orbit, ordered by increasing distance from the Sun. Most named objects in this list have a diameter of 500 km or more. The Sun, a spectral class G2V main-sequence star. The inner Solar System and the terrestrial planets. Mercury. Mercury-crossing minor planets. Venus. Venus-crossing minor planets.
The asteroid and comet belts orbit the Sun from the inner rocky planets into outer parts of the Solar System, interstellar space. [16] [17] [18] An astronomical unit, or AU, is the distance from Earth to the Sun, which is approximately 150 billion meters (93 million miles). [19] Small Solar System objects are classified by their orbits: [20] [21]
Mars Global Surveyor imaged the Earth and Moon on May 8, 2003, 13:00 UTC, very close to maximum angular elongation from the Sun and at a distance of 0.930 AU from Mars. The apparent magnitudes were given as −2.5 and +0.9. [8]
The Parker Solar Probe (PSP; previously Solar Probe, Solar Probe Plus or Solar Probe+) [ 6 ] is a NASA space probe launched in 2018 with the mission of making observations of the outer corona of the Sun. It will approach to within 9.86 solar radii (6.9 million km or 4.3 million miles) [ 7 ][ 8 ] from the center of the Sun, and by 2025 will ...