A Closer Encounter with Mars

Mars at 54 Million Miles (87 Million Km) From Earth

Taking advantage of Mars's closest approach to Earth in eight years, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have taken the space-based observatory's sharpest views yet of the Red Planet. NASA is releasing these images to commemorate the second anniversary of the Mars...

Mars Image Centered Near Location of Pathfinder Landing Site

This image is centered near the location of the Pathfinder landing site. Dark sand dunes that surround the polar cap merge into a large, dark region called Acidalia. This area, as shown by images from the Hubble telescope and other spacecraft, is composed of dark, sand-sized...

Mars' Tharsis Region, Home of the Solar System's Largest Volcanoes

This image is centered on the region of the planet known as Tharsis, home of the largest volcanoes in the solar system. The bright, ring-like feature just to the left of center is the volcano Olympus Mons, which is more than 340 miles (550 kilometers) across and 17 miles (27...

Mars' Volcanic Elysium Region

This image is centered near another volcanic region known as Elysium. This area shows many small, dark markings that have been observed by the Hubble telescope and other spacecraft to change as a result of the movement of sand and dust across the Martian surface. In the upper...

Mars' Syrtis Major Region and Hellas Impact Crater

This image is centered on the dark feature known as Syrtis Major, first seen telescopically by the astronomer Christiaan Huygens in the 17th century. Many small, dark, circular impact craters can be seen in this region, attesting to the Hubble telescope's ability to reveal fine...

A Global Mars Map

The four hemispheric views shown above have been combined into a full-color global map (called a Mollweide projection), showing the regions of Mars imaged by the Hubble telescope during the planet's closest approach to Earth. Latitudes below about 60 degrees south were not...

Summer on Mars

The Hubble Space Telescope captured this view of the planet Mars between April 27 and May 6, 1999 (the middle of Martian northern summer), when the Red Planet was about 54 million miles (87 million kilometers) from Earth. Surface features as small as 12 miles (19 kilometers)...