On Wednesday August 27th at exactly 10:51 the Earth will be the closest it's been to Mars for over 60,000 years.

Miss it and you'll be waiting until the 28th August 2287 for a repeat date...

On Wednesday August 27th at exactly 1051 BST a rather special event will occur.

At that time the planet Mars will be closer to the Earth than at any time in the past 60,000 years.

Now there is no need to panic.

Our two planets are not about to collide.

Even on such a momentous day they will still be 56 million kilometres (35 million miles) apart.

Mars - the red planet

Mars is known as 'the red planet'.

Oxygen and carbon dioxide, in the planet's atmosphere, reacted with its iron surface turning it rusty. This is why Mars has such a distinctive reddish glow.

Mars - the red planet

Viewed through even a fairly small telescope features such as the southern ice cap may be visible. Although dust storms occasionally rage across the plant obscuring its defining features.

Interestingly Mars' orbit has changed over the millennia.

The gravitational pull of the other planets has made its orbit more elongated and reduced the Perhelion distance (the shortest distance between itself and the Sun).

The same forces have also affected the Earth's orbit in a similar way.

Viewing Mars

There is no need to confine viewing to that one day.

For the next three weeks Mars will be very prominent in the evening sky rising in the southeast.

The only drawback is that it never rises very high in the sky reaching a maximum elevation of just over 20 degrees.

Nevertheless it should be possible to view the planet on any fine night particularly as the moon is now waning.

The last time Mars was this close was back in 57617 BC.

If you miss the numerous viewing opportunities over the next few weeks then you will have to wait until 28th August 2287 when it again rubs shoulders with planet Earth.

Richard Angwin