Exploration of Mars seasonal vegetation and apparent linear features were ascribed to intelligent design. Further telescopic observations found two moons, Phobos and Deimos, polar ice caps and the feature now known as Olympus Mons, the solar system's tallest mountain. The discoveries piqued further interest in the study and exploration of the red planet. Mars is a rocky planet, like Earth, that formed around the same time, yet with only half the diameter of Earth, and a far thinner atmosphere; it has a cold and desert-like surface. The minimum-energy launch windows for a Martian expedition occur at intervals of approximately two years and two
Planet hydrostatic equilibrium (to be rounded under its own gravity), but not enough to sustain core fusion like a star. By definition, all planets are "planetary-mass objects", but the purpose of this term is to refer to objects that do not conform to typical expectations for a planet. These include dwarf planets, which are rounded by their own gravity but not massive enough to clear their own orbit, the larger moons, and free-floating planemos, which may have been ejected from a system (rogue planets) or formed through cloud-collapse rather than accretion (sometimes called sub-brown dwarfs). A dwarf planet is a planetary-mass