Hubble can see galaxies impossibly far away. Here’s what happens when it looks at Mars.

In May, skywatchers got a rare treat. The planet Mars was bigger and brighter than it has been in a decade. That's because Mars and the sun were aligned in "opposition." When that happens, the planet shines extra bright in the night sky.

(A bonus was the fact that Mars was nearing its closest approach to Earth, so it appeared larger than usual.)

In the weeks before and after opposition, Mars is easy to view with the naked eye. So what happens, then, when you point humanity's most famous telescope at it?

Behold Mars, the cheddar-colored marble.

NASA/Hubble

This image was captured by Hubble a little more than a week before opposition, on May 12. It shows detail on the surface usually revealed by interplanetary probes, including clouds over the southern ice cap — "details as small as 20 to 30 miles across," NASA explains.

NASA continues:

A large oval feature to the south of Syrtis Major is the bright Hellas Planitia basin. About 1,100 miles across and nearly five miles deep, it was formed about 3.5 billion years ago by an asteroid impact.

The orange area in the center of the image is Arabia Terra, a vast upland region in northern Mars that covers about 2,800 miles. The landscape is densely cratered and heavily eroded, indicating that it could be among the oldest terrains on the planet. Dried river canyons (too small to be seen here) wind through the region and empty into the large northern lowlands.

South of Arabia Terra, 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). These darker regions are covered by dark bedrock and fine-grained sand deposits ground down from ancient lava flows and other volcanic features. These sand grains are coarser and less reflective than the fine dust that gives the brighter regions of Mars their ruddy appearance.

Hubble is best known for its images of far-flung nebulae and galaxies, but it also conducts essential surveys of our solar system, NASA scientists explain in the following video.

Watch: Here are the Pluto pics we've waited 85 years for

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via