On May 12, Hubble took a the photo when Mars was just 80 million kilometers from Earth. The Hubble image reveals details as small as 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 km) across. “Mars is especially photogenic during opposition because it can be seen fully illuminated by the sun as viewed from Earth”, according to NASA.
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Opposition “marks the planet’s closest approach to Earth, so that Mars appears bigger and brighter in the sky than usual”.
This year’s closest approach will occur on May 30 where Mars and Earth will be only separated by 46.8 million miles from each other.
Opposition occurs as Earth’s orbit catches up to Mars’ orbit, with the Sun and Mars on opposite sides of the Earth.
“Because Mars is directly opposite the sun (in relation to Earth) during opposition, Mars rises as the sun sets, and sets as the sun rises”. On opposition night, Mars will be close to the almost full moon and will be the brightest object in the sky, except for the moon and Jupiter, over near the western horizon. But it’ll be readily visible, near the moon all night long, and will be conspicuously bright for at least a week. The oval feature south of Syrtis Major is the bright Hellas Planitia basin, the largest crater on Mars.
The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990 which was placed into orbit by NASA’s space shuttle Discovery. “The Red Planet comes close enough for exceptional viewing only once or twice every 15 or 17 years”. Mars is among one of the smallest planets in the solar system.
“The large, dark region at far right is Syrtis Major Planitia, one of the first features identified on the surface of the planet by seventeenth-century observers”.
In the Hubble footage, the Syrtis Major is covered by clouds.
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The tiresome orange upland region of northern Mars known as Arabia Terra dominates the center of the portrait. Heavily cratered and eroded by the passage of time, this 2,800 mile (4,506 km) wide swathe of tortured terrain is believed to be among the oldest surface regions existing on the Red Planet today. “The angular size of the red planet in the sky will be 18.6 arcsecs, which will be easily resolved with a 6” aperture telescope. However, there are still more closer approaches than the others, where Mars was at the closest to Earth in 2003 at a distance of 34.65 million miles, where astronomers say that this has been the closest point between Earth and Mars in 60,000 years.
