Written by Derek Kessler on
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
Tonight Mars will be as close to Earth as it will ever be in the next decade. The email that your friends sent you about it looking the size of the moon is a bit of an exaggeration, but the red planet is currently 54.8 million miles from Earth, the closest encounter we will see until 2016. If you have clear skies, Mars will be clearly visible as a bright orangish light (Space.com has a handy graphic showing just where to find it).
The Hubble Space Telescope has been taking advantage of the proximity - the closest pass in four years (when Mars was just 34.6 million miles away, a cosmic walk across the street) - and is taking numerous clear images of Mars for study. While NASA and the ESA have a number of probes and satellites and rovers at Mars to study the planet up-close, Hubble still is able to provide the literal and figurative 'big picture' of Mars.
While it might seem that the aging space telescope's time might be better spent pointed out at the stars, the pictures Hubble has provided of Mars have proven vital to its study. The latest images have shown massive dust storms and the recession of carbon dioxide and water frost as the northern latitudes move into Martian spring (Mars orbits the sun every 669 Earth days), and views of rare bluish water ice clouds.
So break out your own telescopes tonight and catch a good look at Mars, because after tonight, it's moving away.
Tonight Mars will be as close to Earth as it will ever be in the next decade. The email that your friends sent you about it looking the size of the moon is a bit of an exaggeration, but the red planet is currently 54.8 million miles from Earth, the closest encounter we will see until 2016. If you have clear skies, Mars will be clearly visible as a bright orangish light (Space.com has a 
