Mars and Earth are quite different. Compared to Earth, a year on Mars lasts almost twice as long – 686.98 Earth days. This is due to the fact that Mars is significantly farther from the Sun and its orbital period (the time it takes to orbit the Sun) is significantly greater than that...
The orbit of a comet, on the other hand, can have a large angle of inclination relative to this band and may even orbit perpendicularly to it, depending on where it comes from. That's just one of many interesting comet facts. According to Kepler's first law, all objects orbit the sun...
How many miles is the Oort cloud from the sun? How long is a day on the planet Mercury? How long does it take light to travel from the sun to Mars? How long does it take for the Sun to rotate on its axis? Approximately how long does it take the Sun to orbit the Milky Way gal...
Determine how many days have passed since January 1st. For example, the number of days between January 1st and February 14th is 44. Add ten to the number of days passed. Write this number down. Following the example, adding 10 to 44 gives 54. Divide 360 by the number of days in the ...
Some objects known asquasi-satellitesdon’t follow Earth’s orbit, but take 365 days to orbit the sun just like our planet, making them appear to be in orbit despite being outside Earth’s gravitational influence. Other close objects approaching our planet before heading in the opposite directi...
How did Mars lose its magnetosphere? Magnetosphere: The magnetosphere is an area of charged particles that exists in response to the magnetic field of many of the solar system's planets, which in turn is generated by the flow of some electrically conductive material within the planet. The magne...
The former USSR led the first five missions, which took place from 1960 to 1962. All the missions were flybys of the planet, meaning that vessels were to orbit Mars to send back images. Those missions were all failures; either the spacecraft didn't make it to the planet or the space...
Mostly, the Earth's atmosphere blocks out photons with a shorter wavelength than ultraviolet light. This makes it difficult to study the Sun's inner workings from Earth directly. However, we do have our ways.Many ground-based telescopesuse a grid of sensors also known as a charge-coupled dev...
A mission can come to an end in several ways. If a spacecraft is reliant on solar power, as many are, then it may peter out as its panels lose efficacy. That’s what happened to theInSight lander on Mars, as its solar panels were covered in dust carried by winds that built up ove...
Then it is time for our Word(s) of the Week. Everything is amped up these days which causes us to muse on the topics of the casual and the extreme, the doing versus the experiencing. Our message is one of stillness and slowness. Don’t push that envelope all the time. Even the me...