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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 ...
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 lowest energy transfer to Mars is a Hohmann transfer orbit, which would involve a roughly 9-month travel time from Earth to Mars, about 500 days (16 mo) [citation needed] at Mars to wait for the transfer window to Earth, and a travel time of about 9 months to return to Earth. [9] [10] This would be a 34-month trip.
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] At different times the actual magnitudes will vary considerably depending on distance and the phases of the Earth and ...
The gravity of Mars is a natural phenomenon, due to the law of gravity, or gravitation, by which all things with mass around the planet Mars are brought towards it. It is weaker than Earth's gravity due to the planet's smaller mass. The average gravitational acceleration on Mars is 3.72076 m/s 2 (about 38% of the gravity of Earth) and it varies.
The lunar distance is on average approximately 385,000 km (239,000 mi), or 1.28 light-seconds; this is roughly 30 times Earth's diameter or 9.5 times Earth's circumference. Around 389 lunar distances make up an AU astronomical unit (roughly the distance from Earth to the Sun). Lunar distance is commonly used to express the distance to near ...
Using this result, he was able to more accurately determine the distance of the Earth from the Sun, based upon the relative size of the orbits of Mars and the Earth. [53] He noted that the edge of the disk of Mars appeared fuzzy because of its atmosphere, which limited the precision he could obtain for the planet's position. [54]
The lander had two means of returning data to Earth: a relay link up to the orbiter and back, and by using a direct link to Earth. The orbiter could transmit to Earth (S-band) at 2,000 to 16,000 bit/s (depending on distance between Mars and Earth), and the lander could transmit to the orbiter at 16,000 bit/s. [20]