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Mars arrives

Mars arrives
Mars arrives NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope photographed Mars on July 18, 2018 as it neared its closest approach to Earth since 2003. It was just 36.9 million miles from Earth. The Hubble captured the planet near its July 27th opposition, when the Sun, Earth and Mars are aligned. It’s springtime in southern hemisphere, where a dust storm ballooned into a global event in mid-June blanketing the planet. Even so, you can make out Hellas Basin, the bright, large oval area at the lower right, where many global dust storms originate. The orange area in the upper center of the image is Arabia Terra. South of that site, running east to west along the equator, are the long dark features known as Sinus Sabaeus (to the east) and Sinus Meridiani (to the west). Opportunity landed in the western portion of Sinus Meridiani, while her twin, Spirit, landed on the other side of the planet in Gusev Crater. The two small moons of Mars, Phobos (right) and Deimos (left), appear in the lower half of the image. NASA, ESA, and STScI