On Sunday (Jan. 12), the Red Planet will make its close approach of Earth at 8:32 a.m. EST (13:32 GMT). This event, known as perigee, causes Mars to appear bigger and brighter in the sky than ...

placing Mars at its closest to Earth. The result is a dazzling display as Mars appears larger, brighter, and more prominent than usual. Its rusty-red glow and distinctive features will be on full ...

A climbing sun takes some of the chill off February, and nights are still long and dark enough to see lots of wonders. This is the best month of the year to see Sirius, the brightest of stars, as ...

Like Earth and Venus, Mars has mountains ... orbits Mars every 30 hours and is less than 10 miles across. Its larger sibling Phobos bears many scars, including craters and deep grooves running ...

Mars' atmosphere is 100 times thinner than Earth's. Because Mars' atmosphere ... Now, you could make your parachute larger to slow down more. And that's partly what NASA does.

Dichotomy of Hemispheres, The Red Planet has disparity between its northern and southern hemispheres. NASA’s Mars ...

That’s because at opposition, Mars is about as close to Earth as it will get during this ... Mars will also appear larger than at any other time this year. Astronomers use angles to measure ...

The days (known as ‘sols’) are only slightly longer than a day on Earth — by about 40 minutes. Because Mars is farther away than Earth, the sun looks twice as small. At night, the dark sky ...

It's been a while now since American space agency NASA seriously started considering bringing pieces of planet Mars to Earth for study ... about a decade later than the most optimistic estimates.

Imagine you could vacation on Mars. At first glance ... North Pole Our first stop, the North Pole. This ice cap is bigger than Texas, and is mostly covered in water ice and solid carbon dioxide ...