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Today, Mars is believed to be largely tectonically inactive. However, observational evidence and its interpretation suggests that this was not the case further back in Mars's geological history. At the scale of the whole planet, two large scale physiographic features are apparent on the surface. The first is that the northern hemisphere of the ...
The most notable difference between Martian craters and other craters in the Solar System is the presence of lobate (fluidized) ejecta blankets. Many craters at equatorial and mid-latitudes on Mars have this form of ejecta morphology, which is thought to arise when the impacting object melts ice in the subsurface.
The Solar System is believed to have formed according to the nebular hypothesis, first proposed in 1755 by Immanuel Kant and independently formulated by Pierre-Simon Laplace. [2] This theory holds that 4.6 billion years ago the Solar System formed from the gravitational collapse of a giant molecular cloud. This initial cloud was likely several ...
Orbit of Mars and other Inner Solar System planets. 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]
The "Mars problem" is a conflict between some simulations of the formation of the terrestrial planets which end with a 0.5–1.0 M E planet in its region, much larger than the actual mass of Mars: 0.107 M E, when begun with planetesimals distributed throughout the inner Solar System. Jupiter's grand tack resolves the Mars problem by limiting ...
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
Mars is much less tectonically active than Earth, and marsquakes are unlikely to have provided seismic waves of the required magnitude. [10] Most sizable craters on Mars date to the Late Heavy Bombardment , 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago (the Noachian period), and are older than the landslide deposits in Valles Marineris.
These features include extensive lava flows, vast lava plains, and, such as Olympus Mons, the largest known volcanoes in the Solar System. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] Martian volcanic features range in age from Noachian (>3.7 billion years) to late Amazonian (< 500 million years), indicating that the planet has been volcanically active throughout its history ...