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[1] [2] Mars has an axial tilt and a rotation period similar to those of Earth. Thus, it experiences seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter much like Earth. Mars' orbital eccentricity is considerably larger, which causes its seasons to vary significantly in length.
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 ...
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.
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The axial tilt of Mars is 25.19° relative to its orbital plane, which is similar to the axial tilt of Earth. [2] As a result, Mars has seasons like Earth, though on Mars they are nearly twice as long because its orbital period is that much longer. In the present day, the orientation of the north pole of Mars is close to the star Deneb. [21]
NASA released a stunning image on Friday showing our home planet as well as the moon from Mars.
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 the solar system, the synodic period (with respect to Earth and the Sun) differs from the tropical period owing to Earth's motion around the Sun.
A synchronous orbit around Earth that is circular and lies in the equatorial plane is called a geostationary orbit. The more general case, when the orbit is inclined to Earth's equator or is non-circular is called a geosynchronous orbit. The corresponding terms for synchronous orbits around Mars are areostationary and areosynchronous orbits.