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The superior planets, orbiting outside the Earth's orbit, do not exhibit a full range of phases since their maximum phase angles are smaller than 90°. Mars often appears significantly gibbous, it has a maximum phase angle of 45°. Jupiter has a maximum phase angle of 11.1° and Saturn of 6°, [1] so their phases are almost always full.
The Earth phase, Terra phase, terrestrial phase, or phase of Earth, is the shape of the directly sunlit portion of Earth as viewed from the Moon (or elsewhere extraterrestrially). From the Moon, the Earth phases gradually and cyclically change over the period of a synodic month (about 29.53 days), as the orbital positions of the Moon around ...
In this situation, the latter planet is said to be superior to the former. In the reference frame of the Earth, where the terms were originally used, the inferior planets are Mercury and Venus, while the superior planets are Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Dwarf planets like Ceres or Pluto and most asteroids are 'superior' in the ...
In observational astronomy, phase angle is the angle between the light incident onto an observed object and the light reflected from the object. In the context of astronomical observations, this is usually the angle Sun -object-observer. For terrestrial observations, "Sun–object–Earth" is often nearly the same thing as "Sun–object ...
Plants, later animals and possibly earlier forms of fungi form around this time. The early and late phases of this eon may have undergone "Snowball Earth" periods, in which all of the planet suffered below-zero temperatures. The early continents of Columbia, Rodinia and Pannotia, in that order, may have existed in this eon. Phanerozoic: 538.8 ...
The timeline of the early universe outlines the formation and subsequent evolution of the Universe from the Big Bang (13.799 ± 0.021 billion years ago) [1] to the present day. An epoch is a moment in time from which nature or situations change to such a degree that it marks the beginning of a new era or age. Times on this list are measured ...
The phase curve is useful for characterizing an object's regolith (soil) and atmosphere. It is also the basis for computing the geometrical albedo and the Bond albedo of the body. In ephemeris generation, the phase curve is used in conjunction with the distances from the object to the Sun and the Earth to calculate the apparent magnitude.
The geological history of the Earth follows the major geological events in Earth's past based on the geological time scale, a system of chronological measurement based on the study of the planet's rock layers (stratigraphy). Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago by accretion from the solar nebula, a disk-shaped mass of dust and gas left ...