Abstract
Beyond the Earth’s orbit, at a mean distance of228million km from the Sun, lies the orbit of the planet Mars. Mars is thus the first of thesuperior planets(planets which orbit the Sun at greater distances from it than the Earth does). Mars has the highest orbital eccentricity of all the major planets. The radius of Mars’s orbit varies from208million km at perihelion to250million km at aphelion. The planet’s sidereal period (the time taken for Mars to go once round the Sun) is687Earth-days.
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© 2003 Springer-Verlag London
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North, G. (2003). The Planet Mars. In: Astronomy in Depth. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-426-5_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-426-5_6
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-85233-580-9
Online ISBN: 978-0-85729-426-5
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