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The axial tilt and eccentricity of Earth (and Mars) are by no means fixed, but rather vary due to gravitational perturbations from other planets in the Solar System on a timescale of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years. Thus, for example Earth's eccentricity, currently about 1% regularly fluctuates and can increase up to 6%.
The rotational axis of Earth, for example, is the imaginary line that passes through both the North Pole and South Pole, whereas the Earth's orbital axis is the line perpendicular to the imaginary plane through which the Earth moves as it revolves around the Sun; the Earth's obliquity or axial tilt is the angle between these two lines.
The angle of the Earth's axial tilt with respect to the orbital plane (the obliquity of the ecliptic) varies between 22.1° and 24.5°, over a cycle of about 41,000 years. The current tilt is 23.44°, roughly halfway between its extreme values.
The atmosphere of Mars contains a great deal of fine dust particles. Water vapor will condense on the particles, then fall down to the ground due to the additional weight of the water coating. When Mars is at its greatest tilt or obliquity, up to 2 cm of ice could be removed from the summer ice cap and deposited at midlatitudes.
Astronomers believed at the time that Mars had a relatively substantial atmosphere. They knew that the rotation period of Mars (the length of its day) was almost the same as Earth's, and they knew that Mars' axial tilt was also almost the same as Earth's, which meant it had seasons in the astronomical and meteorological sense. They could also ...
The axial tilt of Mars is 25.19° relative to its orbital plane, which is similar to the axial tilt of Earth. [2] As a result, Mars has seasons like Earth, though on Mars they are nearly twice as long because its orbital period is that much longer. In the present day, the orientation of the north pole of Mars is close to the star Deneb. [21]
A celestial object's axial tilt indicates whether the object's rotation is prograde or retrograde. Axial tilt is the angle between an object's rotation axis and a line perpendicular to its orbital plane passing through the object's centre. An object with an axial tilt up to 90 degrees is rotating in the same direction as its primary.
The north orbital poles of the Solar System major planets all lie within Draco. [1] The central yellow dot represents the Sun's rotation axis north pole. [citation needed] Jupiter's north orbital pole is colored orange, Mercury's pale blue, Venus's green, Earth's blue, Mars's red, Saturn's magenta, Uranus's grey, and Neptune's lavender.