Incredible Images of Mars from Earth

By Nancy Atkinson - September 16, 2016 at 1:28 PM UTC | Planetary Science
mars-june-13-peach.jpg

What did you do during your summer this year? Award-winning astrophotographer Damian Peach spent much of his 2016 summer capturing incredibly clear images of Mars during opposition, when the Red Planet was closest to Earth. Peach has now compiled a wonderful "rotating planet" movie of images taken between June 4th - 18th, 2016, showing amazing detail of the planet.

At its closest point this year, Mars was about 46.8 million miles (75.3 million kilometers) from Earth.

Peach's astrophotography truly sets "a new standard" as one commenter said, and Peach just won another prize in the "Planets, Comets & Asteroids" division of the

Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016, awarded at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England last night.

Peach has said this summer held "excellent seeing," both from his home in the UK and from a photography trip to Barbados. He even captured a fleeting localized dust storm on Mars during mid-June over Mare Erythraeum, one of the prominent dark areas on the planet that were once thought to be seas. In the image below of the dust storm, Peach also pointed out the "linear cloud streak in the southern hemisphere - clearly those Martian flying saucer pilots have been having fun!"

[caption id="attachment_130857" align="aligncenter" width="580"]

Images of Mars from Earth on Jun 15, 2016. Credit and copyright: Damian Peach. [/caption]

See more of Peach's excellent astrophotography work

at his website

, or on

Twitter

. See a larger version of the lead image

here.

Mars is still visible in the night sky, but if you missed seeing this planet at its brightest in 2016, the next time Mars will be at opposition will be in 2018, with close approach on July 31, 2018.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com