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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 ...
Apparent sizes of the moons of Mars, Deimos and Phobos, and the Moon as viewed from the surface of their respective planets (Mars' moons imaged by the Curiosity rover, 1 August 2013) Size comparison between Phobos, Deimos and the Moon (right) If viewed from Mars's surface near its equator, a full Phobos would look about one-third as big as a ...
[10] [11] Due to the effect of librations and the parallax due to the close distance of Phobos, by observing at high and low latitudes and observing as Phobos is rising and setting, the overall total coverage of Phobos's surface that is visible at one time or another from one location or another on Mars's surface is considerably higher than 50%.
The closest in the past 1,000 years was in 1761, when Mars and Jupiter appeared to the naked eye as a single bright object, according to Giorgini. Looking ahead, the year 2348 will be almost as close.
Deimos (/ ˈ d aɪ m ə s /; systematic designation: Mars II) [11] is the smaller and outer of the two natural satellites of Mars, the other being Phobos.Deimos has a mean radius of 6.2 km (3.9 mi) and takes 30.3 hours to orbit Mars. [5]
Phobos is one of the least reflective bodies in the Solar System, with an albedo of 0.071. Surface temperatures range from about −4 °C (25 °F) on the sunlit side to −112 °C (−170 °F) on the shadowed side. The notable surface feature is the large impact crater, Stickney, which takes up a substantial proportion of the moon's surface ...
Mars's average distance from the Sun is roughly 230 million km (143 million mi), and its orbital period is 687 (Earth) days. The solar day (or sol) on Mars is only slightly longer than an Earth day: 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. [185] A Martian year is equal to 1.8809 Earth years, or 1 year, 320 days, and 18.2 hours. [2]
Europa orbits Jupiter in roughly 3.55 days, with an orbital radius of about 670,900 km. With an orbital eccentricity of only 0.009, the orbit itself is nearly circular, and the orbital inclination relative to Jupiter's equatorial plane is small, at 0.470°. [40]