New Hubble Image Of Mars Live Shots. Great Viewing Opportunity Of The Red Planet In Late May

Best Viewing Opportunity Of The Red Planet in Two Years

Mars Makes Major Comeback in Night Sky During Alignment With Earth

NASA To Release New Hubble Space Telescope Image of Mars

The night sky in late May will have a very special feature this year. That’s because Mars will shine bigger and brighter than any other time in the past two years as the Red Planet approaches the closest point in its orbit to Earth. No fancy telescopes are needed. You’ll be able to spot the Red Planet with the naked eye.

Mars and Earth travel at different speeds in their elliptical orbits around the sun. While they line up every 26 months, this will be Mars’ closest orbit to Earth since 2005!

The Hubble Space Telescope will take advantage of this great viewing opportunity and turn its gaze toward Mars to capture a new, detailed snapshot of the Red Planet.

NASA scientists are available on Friday, May 20th from 6:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. EDT to show your viewers Hubble’s newest image of Mars, tell you how you can spot Mars next weekend and show you some of Hubble’s other images of planets, moons, and fascinating objects in our solar system.

For 26 years, Hubble has taken stunning pictures of the planets right here in our solar system, in addition to its more than a million observations of far away galaxies and nebulae. These views of the planets in our solar system have provided scientists with a treasure trove of data about Earth’s closest neighbors.

****To book a window*** Contact: Michelle Handleman/ michelle.z.handleman@nasa.gov/ 301-286-0918 work

HD Satellite Coordinates for AMC9-K17: AMC-9 Ku-band Xp 17 Slot AB| 83.0 ° W Longitude | DL 12045.8 MHz | Horizontal Polarity | QPSK/DVB-S | FEC 3/4 | SR 13.235 Mbps | DR 18.2954 MHz | HD 720p | Format MPEG2 | Chroma Level 4:2:0 | Audio Embedded

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More about Mars in the night sky.