Next weekend Mars will be at its closest to Earth in 15 years, appearing as a bright red-orange jewel in the night sky. To celebrate this celestial event, NASA will release a stunning new image of Mars captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.
This summer, Hubble has been busy watching out-of-this-world weather — a blustery dust storm on Mars and churning clouds on Saturn. Join Hubble Space Telescope scientists from 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. EDT on Friday, July 27, for a special look at Hubble’s latest stormy portraits of the planets, as well as tips for sighting them in the night sky.
For almost three decades Hubble has shown us the wonders of our own solar system — from Mars, Jupiter and Saturn to Uranus and Neptune. Hubble’s Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program makes long-term observations of the outer planets to understand their atmospheric dynamics and evolution as gas giants.