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The Mars time of noon is 12:00 which is in Earth time 12 hours and 20 minutes after midnight. For the Mars Pathfinder, Mars Exploration Rover (MER), Phoenix, and Mars Science Laboratory missions, the operations teams have worked on "Mars time", with a work schedule synchronized to the local time at the landing site on Mars, rather than the ...
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).
Extra-close oppositions of Mars happen every 15 to 17 years, when we pass between Mars and the Sun around the time of its perihelion (closest point to the Sun in orbit). The minimum distance between Earth and Mars has been declining over the years, and in 2003 the minimum distance was 55.76 million km, nearer than any such encounter in almost ...
The equation of time is the east or west component of the analemma, a curve representing the angular offset of the Sun from its mean position on the celestial sphere as viewed from Earth. The equation of time values for each day of the year, compiled by astronomical observatories, were widely listed in almanacs and ephemerides. [2] [3]: 14
The orbit of a planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci. A line segment joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time. The square of a planet's orbital period is proportional to the cube of the length of the semi-major axis of its orbit.
The orbital period (also revolution period) is the amount of time a given astronomical object takes to complete one orbit around another object. In astronomy , it usually applies to planets or asteroids orbiting the Sun , moons orbiting planets, exoplanets orbiting other stars , or binary stars .
The average duration of the day-night cycle on Mars — i.e., a Martian day — is 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35.244 seconds, [3] equivalent to 1.02749125 Earth days. [4] The sidereal rotational period of Mars—its rotation compared to the fixed stars—is 24 hours, 37 minutes and 22.66 seconds. [4]
Viewed from the same location, a star seen at one position in the sky will be seen at the same position on another night at the same time of day (or night), if the day is defined as a sidereal day (also known as the sidereal rotation period). This is similar to how the time kept by a sundial can be used to find the location of the Sun.