Orbit of Mars

Orbit of Mars relative to the orbits of inner Solar System planets
Mars circling the Sun further and slower than Earth
Orbit of Mars and other Inner Solar System planets
see caption
Mars seen through a 16-inch amateur telescope, at 2020 opposition

Mars has an orbit with a semimajor axis of 1.524 astronomical units (228 million km) (12.673 light minutes), and an eccentricity of 0.0934. The planet orbits the Sun in 687 days and travels 9.55 AU in doing so, making the average orbital speed 24 km/s.

The eccentricity is greater than that of any other planet except Mercury, and this causes a large difference between the aphelion and perihelion distances—they are respectively 1.666 and 1.381 AU.

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