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Pathfinder. Mars Pathfinder used the local apparent solar time at its location of landing. Its time zone was AAT-02:13:01, where "AAT" is Airy Apparent Time, meaning apparent (true) solar time at Airy-0. The difference between the true and mean solar time (AMT and AAT) is the Martian equation of time.
Mars sol. Sol (borrowed from the Latin word for sun) is a solar day on Mars; that is, a Mars-day. A sol is the apparent interval between two successive returns of the Sun to the same meridian (sundial time) as seen by an observer on Mars. It is one of several units for timekeeping on Mars. A sol is slightly longer than an Earth day.
On Mars the difference between sundial time and clock time can be as much as 50 minutes, due to the considerably greater eccentricity of its orbit. The planet Uranus , which has an extremely large axial tilt, has an equation of time that makes its days start and finish several hours earlier or later depending on where it is in its orbit.
Mars reaches opposition when there is a 180° difference between the geocentric longitudes of it and the Sun. At a time near opposition (within 8½ days) the Earth–Mars distance is as small as it will get during that 780-day synodic period. [7]
The average time between the successive oppositions of Mars, its synodic period, is 780 days; but the number of days between successive oppositions can range from 764 to 812. [189] The distance at close approach varies between about 54 and 103 million km (34 and 64 million mi) due to the planets' elliptical orbits, which causes comparable ...
On a prograde planet like the Earth, the sidereal day is shorter than the solar day. At time 1, the Sun and a certain distant star are both overhead. At time 2, the planet has rotated 360° and the distant star is overhead again (1→2 = one sidereal day). But it is not until a little later, at time 3, that the Sun is overhead again (1→3 = one solar day). More simply, 1→2 is a complete ...
Seasons. Mars has an axial tilt of 25.19°, quite close to the value of 23.44° for Earth, and thus Mars has seasons of spring, summer, autumn, winter as Earth does. As on Earth, the southern and northern hemispheres have summer and winter at opposing times. However, the orbit of Mars has significantly greater eccentricity than that of Earth.
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.