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As on Earth, the sidereal year is not the quantity that is needed for calendar purposes. Similarly, the tropical year would likely be used because it gives the best match to the progression of the seasons. It is slightly shorter than the sidereal year due to the precession of Mars' rotational axis. The precession cycle is 93,000 Martian years ...
The prefix areo-derives from Ares, the ancient Greek god of war and counterpart to the Roman god Mars, with whom the planet was identified. The modern Greek word for Mars is Άρης (Áris). As with all synchronous orbits, an areosynchronous orbit has an orbital period equal in length to the primary's sidereal day.
For example, the synodic period of the Moon's orbit as seen from Earth, relative to the Sun, is 29.5 mean solar days, since the Moon's phase and position relative to the Sun and Earth repeats after this period. This is longer than the sidereal period of its orbit around Earth, which is 27.3 mean solar days, owing to the motion of Earth around ...
A Martian year is approximately 668.6 sols, equivalent to approximately 687 Earth days [1] or 1.88 Earth years. The sol was adopted in 1976 during the Viking Lander missions and is a measure of time mainly used by NASA when, for example, scheduling the use of a Mars rover .
In astronomy, the rotation period or spin period [1] of a celestial object (e.g., star, planet, moon, asteroid) has two definitions. The first one corresponds to the sidereal rotation period (or sidereal day), i.e., the time that the object takes to complete a full rotation around its axis relative to the background stars (inertial space).
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 ...
The period of one revolution of a planet's orbit is known as its sidereal period or year. [62] A planet's year depends on its distance from its star; the farther a planet is from its star, the longer the distance it must travel and the slower its speed, since it is less affected by its star's gravity.
The Milky Way Galaxy has a diameter of 100,000–200,000 light-years and is estimated to contain 100–400 billion stars and at least that number of planets. The Solar System is located on the inner edge of one of the Milky Way's spiral arms, about 27,000 light-years from the Galactic Center, which the Sun orbits with a period of 240 million ...