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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 ...
Planets whose orbits lie within the orbit of Earth. [nb 1] Mercury and Venus: Inner planet: A planet in the Solar System that have orbits smaller than the asteroid belt. [nb 2] Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars: Outer planet: A planet in the Solar System beyond the asteroid belt, and hence refers to the gas giants. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune ...
Areocentric orbit (named after Ares): An orbit around the planet Mars, such as that of its moons or artificial satellites. For orbits centered about planets other than Earth and Mars and for the dwarf planet Pluto, the orbit names incorporating Greek terminology are not as established and much less commonly used:
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]
In the reference frame of the Earth, where the terms were originally used, the inferior planets are Mercury and Venus, while the superior planets are Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Dwarf planets like Ceres or Pluto and most asteroids are 'superior' in the sense that they almost all orbit outside the orbit of Earth.
For a mission between Earth and Mars, for example, these launch windows occur every 26 months. A Hohmann transfer orbit also determines a fixed time required to travel between the starting and destination points; for an Earth-Mars journey this travel time is about 9 months.
Venus-crossing minor planets. 524522 Zoozve, Venus' quasi-satellite; Earth. Moon; Near-Earth asteroids (including 99942 Apophis) Earth trojan (2010 TK 7) Earth-crosser asteroids. Earth's quasi-satellites; 433 Eros; Mars. Deimos; Phobos; Mars trojans; Mars-crossing minor planets; Asteroids in the asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and ...
A Mars cycler is an elliptical orbit (green) that crosses the orbits of Earth (blue) and Mars (red), and encounters both planets at the points where it crosses their orbits, although not necessarily on every orbit.