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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 ...
The "speed" at which a planet goes around the Sun, in terms of revolutions per time, is given by the inverse of its period, and the speed difference between two planets is the difference between these. Since the time interval between two oppositions is the time it takes for 360° to be covered by that speed difference, the average interval is:
Because the orbit of Mars is considerably eccentric its brightness at opposition can range from magnitude −3.0 to −1.4. [14] The minimum brightness is about magnitude +1.6 [14] when Mars is on the opposite site of the Sun from the Earth. Rotational variations can elevate or suppress the brightness of Mars by 5% and global dust storms can ...
On both Earth and Mars, these two precessions are in opposite directions, and therefore add, to make the precession cycle between the tropical and anomalistic years 21,000 years on Earth and 29,700 Martian years (55,900 Earth years) on Mars. As on Earth, the period of rotation of Mars (the length of its day) is slowing down.
The equatorial plane is the plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the central body. An inclination of 30° could also be described using an angle of 150°. The convention is that the normal orbit is prograde, an orbit in the same direction as the planet rotates. Inclinations greater than 90° describe retrograde orbits (backward). Thus:
The synodic period is the amount of time that it takes for an object to reappear at the same point in relation to two or more other objects. In common usage, these two objects are typically Earth and the Sun. The time between two successive oppositions or two successive conjunctions is also equal to the synodic period. For celestial bodies in ...
With Mars conjunct Jupiter in Gemini and your 12th house of privacy and unconscious patterns, you may feel a strong urge to explore your inner world and engage in healing practices, as it marks a ...
The use of Chebyshev polynomials enables highly precise, efficient calculations for any given point in time. DE405 calculation for the inner planets "recovers" accuracy of about 0.001 seconds of arc (arcseconds) (equivalent to about 1 km at the distance of Mars ); for the outer planets it is generally about 0.1 arcseconds .