The Latest Images from Mars

Incredible vistas from Mars.

Mars Landing - Exciting

Unreal images coming back from Mars this week.

Water on Mars

Migh be more water on Mars than we originally thought.

Moon and Mars in Monday's Sky

If it's clear where you are tonight, look about one-third of the sky up from the southwest horizon. There you'll see a fat crescent moon, and a moderately bright yellow-orange "star" hovering well above and to its left.

But that's no star — it's a planet. It might be difficult to believe that it's the same object that less than four months ago shone some seven times brighter. It's Mars, which continues to recede from Earth and consequently continues to fade.

Currently the Red Planet is 129 million miles (208 million kilometers) away from Earth and shines at magnitude +0.8. That's still a fairly respectable brightness; on the list of the 21 brightest stars, Mars would currently rank 13th. Still, that's quite a comedown from early March, when Mars shone with a brilliance just a trifle less than that of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky.

The gap separating the moon from Mars tonight will be roughly equivalent to the width of your clenched fist held at arm's length, which measures about 10 degrees.  By Tuesday evening (June 26), the moon will have arrived at first quarter phase and will have shifted its position relative to Mars, hanging off to its lower left and at a similar distance compared to the previous night.

Mars is currently positioned against the dim stars of western Virgo and it's on its way toward a mid-August night sky rendezvous with the planet Saturn and the bluish star Spica. Take a good look at where Mars is right now.  About 25 degrees — two and a half fists — to its lower right is the bluish first magnitude star Regulus in Leo.

The moon can be a convenient benchmark to help you identify Mars early this week. On Wednesday evening, the moon will be within striking distance of Spica and Saturn. Yellow-white Saturn will be above bluish Spica and will appear somewhat brighter.  While Mars is a disappointment in a telescope, ringed Saturn now appears nearly three times bigger than Mars, offering a spectacular sight.

Curiosity Heads to Mars

NASA's $2.5 billion robotic rover Curiosity has begun its long journey to Mars on a mission that the space agency hopes will further its understanding of life in the universe.

The Mars Science Laboratory blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Saturday aboard an Atlas V rocket. Less than an hour after launch, the rover sent back a signal to NASA, reporting that it had successfully separated from the rocket and was flying free on its way to the Red Planet.
Its main mission is to determine if life in some form exists on Mars, or if it ever did.

Curiosity will collect soil and rock samples and analyze them for evidence that the area has, or ever had, environmental conditions favorable to microbial life.

The rover is the size of an SUV and equipped with 10 science instruments, is expected to land on Mars in August 2012.

Curiosity weighs 1 ton and is twice as long and five times heavier than previous rovers. The extra instruments and mobility should be a big help to NASA, which has been down one Mars robot since the rover Spirit, a robotic twin to Opportunity, stopped functioning earlier this year.