The planet is much farther from the Sun than Earth.
NASA's Opportunity rover served on Mars from 2004 to 2019, for a total of fifteen years – an amazing result, considering it was designed for only ninety days (!). The rover's main mission was to chemically and physically examine the soil of the Red Planet, during which it found evidence of water on the planet.
In addition, of course, Opportunity also took pictures on Mars, and thanks to that, we can also see what a sunrise looks like on a planet 225 million kilometers away from Earth. Based on the recording taken by the rover on May 6, 2004, exactly as follows:
The distance between Earth and Mars is not constant because of the orbits of the planets around the Sun (or the period of their orbits around the Sun):
- The average distance between Earth and Mars is about 225 million kilometers.
- When Earth and Mars are closest to each other, the distance is about 54.6 million kilometers,
- When they are farthest apart, they can be up to 401 million kilometers away.
(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Jason Mageau)
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