OCT 147:40 AM ET
Zhuque-2E Block 2 · 10 satellites
Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center · 10 satellites
Launch Successful
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A field guide to the fourth world
The red planet, up close.
Cold, windswept, and geologically immense. Mars holds the solar system’s largest volcano, its largest canyon system, and a record of rivers that vanished billions of years ago.
228M
kilometers from the Sun on average — about 1.5 times Earth’s distance.
Hubble image: NASA / ESA / STScI · source
Next launch
Falcon 9 Block 5 · USSF-481
…
Vandenberg SFB · 7:44 PM ET
Exoplanets confirmed
6,445
NASA Exoplanet Archive · updated daily
Humans in space
12
in orbit right now
Light-time to Mars
…
one-way, right now
Look up
Tonight's sky
What's overhead where you are, computed live in your browser — no account, no tracking. Pick a city or share your location.
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Planets up tonight
- Calculating…
Today beyond Mars
Space briefing
Upcoming launches worldwide
OCT 157:44 PM ET
Falcon 9 Block 5 · USSF-481
Vandenberg SFB · USSF-481
Go for Launch
OCT 196:30 AM ET
Falcon 9 Block 5 · Bandwagon 5 (Dedicated Mid-Inclination Rideshare)
Cape Canaveral SFS · Bandwagon 5 (Dedicated Mid-Inclination Rideshare)
Go for Launch
OCT 193:41 PM ET
H3-24 · Martian Moons eXploration (MMX)
Tanegashima Space Center · Martian Moons eXploration (MMX)
Go for Launch
OCT 206:14 PM ET
Falcon 9 Block 5 · Starlink Group 15-15
Vandenberg SFB · Starlink Group 15-15
Go for Launch
OCT 208:00 PM ET
Electron · We're Not Hawking Around (3x HawkEye 360)
Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 · We're Not Hawking Around (3x HawkEye 360)
To Be Determined
OCT 241:29 AM ET
Falcon 9 Block 5 · Starlink Group 15-16
Vandenberg SFB · Starlink Group 15-16
Go for Launch
OCT 288:00 PM ET
Vulcan VC6L · Amazon Leo (LV-01)
Cape Canaveral SFS · Amazon Leo (LV-01)
To Be Determined
Discoveries & signals
εpsilon
Welcome home, Sophie Adenot
ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot returns from her first mission to the International Space Station
Week in images: 05-09 October 2026
Earth from Space: Namibia’s biggest salt pan
Splashdown confirmed for Sophie Adenot
Field notes
From the blog
Original guides and explainers on Mars, the Moon, eclipses, and the night sky — written by MarsOMars.
The Moon's south pole: why Artemis is going there
No astronaut has ever landed near a lunar pole. Water ice in shadowed craters, near-constant sunlight on the ridges, and some of the Moon's oldest ground explain why Artemis IV is heading south in early 2028.
November 2026: your night-sky guide
Taurid fireballs, the Leonids under dark skies, a Beaver supermoon, and Venus at its brightest as the morning star — everything worth looking up for this November.
Google launched a data center into orbit — it's the size of a fridge
Project Suncatcher's MVP satellite rode to orbit on October 1 carrying four of Google's AI chips. It's a physics experiment wearing a data-center costume — and the most honest numbers are the humble ones.
Worlds within a world
Mars rewards a change of scale. From orbit, ancient scars cross a hemisphere. At ground level, layered rock preserves a long environmental story.
08 · First flight
Ingenuity, on Mars
The small helicopter tucked under Perseverance's belly before its historic first powered flight on another world.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
02 · Self portrait
Perseverance & Ingenuity
NASA's Perseverance rover photographed itself with the Ingenuity helicopter tucked beneath it, in Jezero Crater.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
03 · On the surface
Perseverance is reading an ancient lakebed.
The rover is exploring Jezero Crater for evidence of past habitability and collecting carefully selected rock cores for possible future study on Earth.
Follow the mission at NASA ↗Read the planet
Three quick lenses make Mars easier to understand. Choose one to move from the everyday scale to the planetary.
38%
Gravity changes every movement.
Mars has about 38% of Earth’s surface gravity. A 100-pound object on Earth would weigh roughly 38 pounds there.
Missions
Everyone who has been to Mars
Six decades of robotic exploration, from the first flyby to rovers and a helicopter — by the United States, the Soviet Union, Europe, India, China, and the UAE.
United States · NASA
Mariner 4
First successful Mars flyby, returning the first close-up images of another planet.
Mariner 9
First spacecraft to orbit another planet; it mapped about 85% of the Martian surface.
Viking 1 & 2
The first successful Mars landers; they ran the first experiments searching for signs of life.
Mars Pathfinder & Sojourner
The first rover on Mars — Sojourner rolled off the Pathfinder lander onto Martian soil in 1997.
Spirit & Opportunity
Twin rovers built for 90 days; Opportunity kept exploring for nearly 15 years.
Curiosity
Nuclear-powered rover still climbing Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, studying Mars’ ancient habitability.
Perseverance & Ingenuity
Landed in Jezero Crater in 2021; Ingenuity made the first powered flight on another world.
Soviet Union
Mars 2 & 3
Mars 2 crashed, but Mars 3 achieved the first soft landing on Mars (Dec 2, 1971) — falling silent seconds later.
Europe · ESA
Mars Express
Europe’s long-running orbiter, still mapping Mars in 3D and relaying data for surface missions.
India · ISRO
Mars Orbiter Mission · Mangalyaan
India’s first interplanetary mission — the first Asian nation at Mars, and the first to succeed on its first attempt, on a budget of about $74 million.
China · CNSA
Tianwen-1 · Zhurong
China put an orbiter, a lander, and the Zhurong rover on Mars in a single mission — a first.
United Arab Emirates
Hope · Al Amal
The first Arab interplanetary mission, studying the Martian atmosphere across a full Martian year.
Young explorers
Space is for kids
Hands-on projects and games for young astronomers and engineers: build a Mars rover, assemble a working telescope, and explore the solar system.
NASA Space Place
NASA’s website just for kids: space games, hands-on crafts, short videos, and articles about the planets, in English and Spanish.
Build a Mars rover from pasta
A JPL engineering challenge: design a rover out of pasta and glue, race it down a ramp, and iterate on your design like a real engineer.
Build your own telescope
Construct a working refracting telescope from cardboard tubes and lenses, then take it outside and explore the night sky.
Mars Rover Driver board game
Play as the rover, the scientist, and the engineer: plan command sequences and drive a mission across the surface of Mars.
Interesting notes
A / 01
The red is rust.
Iron minerals in Martian soil oxidize, tinting the dust and the atmosphere’s haze with its familiar ochre color.
A / 02
Water wrote the early chapters.
Ancient valleys, deltas, lakebeds, and water-formed minerals show that liquid water once moved across the surface.
A / 03
The planet still has weather.
Thin air can produce clouds, winds, dust devils, and storms large enough to wrap around the planet.
A / 04
Its moons are tiny companions.
Small, irregular Phobos and Deimos orbit Mars. Phobos is slowly spiraling inward and will not last forever.