Jelly Donut Shaped Rock Appears on Mars
29.01.2014

What if a rock that looked like a jelly donut suddenly appeared on Mars? That's just what happened in front of the robotic Opportunity rover currently exploring the red planet. The unexpectedly placed...

Global Map: Mars at Opposition
20.11.2020

This may be the best global Mars map made with a telescope based on planet Earth. The image data were captured by a team of observers over six long nights...

Seasonal Dark Streaks on Mars
8.08.2011

What is causing these dark streaks on Mars? A leading hypothesis is flowing -- but quickly evaporating -- water. The streaks, visible in dark brown near the image center, appear in the Martian spring and summer but fade in the winter months, only to reappear again the next summer.

Greeley Panorama on Mars
9.07.2012

What did you do over your winter vacation? If you were the Opportunity rover on Mars, you spent four months of it stationary and perched on the northern slope of Greeley Haven -- and tilted so that your solar panels could absorb as much sunlight as possible.

Ancient Volcanos of Mars
8.08.2002

Findings of ancient martian microbial fossils in meteorites and liquid water related features on Mars' surface are currently controversial issues. But one thing long established by space-based observations of the Red Planet is the presence of volcanos, as Mars supports some of the largest volcanos in the solar system.

Utopia on Mars
22.07.1996

The Viking 2 spacecraft was launched on the Road to Utopia in September of 1975 (30 years after Bing, Dotty, and Bob). In August of 1976, after making the second successful Martian landing, Viking...

Stereo Mars
3.12.2022

Mars looks sharp in these two rooftop telescope views captured in late November from Singapore, planet Earth. At the time, Mars was about 82 million kilometers from Singapore and approaching its opposition, opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky on December 8.

Mars Methane Mystery Deepens
22.04.2019

The methane mystery on Mars just got stranger. New results from ESA and Roscosmos' ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, has unexpectedly not detected methane in the atmosphere of Mars. This result follows the 2013 detection of methane by NASA's Curiosity rover, a result seemingly confirmed by ESA's orbiting Mars Express the next day.

Moonlight, Mars and Milky Way
27.06.2001

Aloha and welcome to a breath-taking skyscape. In this celestial scene, a four day old Moon illuminates a dreamlike foreground while bright planet Mars (above center) rules and the Milky Way's cosmic clouds of stars and dust seem to stretch from horizon to horizon.

Mars at Closest Approach 2016
9.08.2016

When does Mars appear the largest? This occurs when Earth sweeps past Mars in their respective orbits around the Sun, creating a momentary Sun-Earth-Mars alignment called opposition. The featured video shows the Mars opposition that occurred earlier this year. All of the images were taken from Earth with a small telescope.