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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 ...
A conjunction of the Moon and Mars took place on 24 December 2007, very close to the time of the full Moon and at the time when Mars was at opposition to the Sun. Mars and the full Moon appeared close together in the sky worldwide, with an occultation of Mars occurring for observers in some far northern locations. [13]
As on Earth, the period of rotation of Mars (the length of its day) is slowing down. However, this effect is three orders of magnitude smaller than on Earth because the gravitational effect of Phobos is negligible and the effect is mainly due to the Sun. [25] On Earth, the gravitational influence of the Moon has a much greater effect ...
At one point, 1.35 million Earth years ago, Mars had an eccentricity of roughly 0.002, much less than that of Earth today. [188] Mars's cycle of eccentricity is 96,000 Earth years compared to Earth's cycle of 100,000 years. [189] Mars has its closest approach to Earth in a synodic period of 779.94 days.
Conjunction of Mercury and Venus, appearing above the Moon, at the Paranal Observatory. This is a list of the Solar System 's recent planetary conjunctions (in other words, when two planets look close together) for the period 2005–2020.
Both planets will be separated by one degree, with a bright Venus appearing to overshadow a dimmer and smaller Mars. Venus will be above Mars in the sky. Mars will be below and to the right of Venus.
The 819 days of the calendar must be viewed across a 45-year time period to fully understand. ... to return to the same location in the sky, as seen from Earth—of key planets. ... Venus needs ...
Consequently, Venus transits above Earth only occur when an inferior conjunction takes place during some days of June or December, the time where the orbits of Venus and Earth cross a straight line with the Sun. [185] This results in Venus transiting above Earth in a sequence of currently 8 years, 105.5 years, 8 years and 121.5 years, forming ...