Mars is pretty close -

Mars is the 4th planet from the Sun. Mars is pretty close to earth now. It will be this close again in 2016 when we are in 11th grade. It is actually 55 million miles away from. This is not nearly as close as in 2003, when Mars came within 35 million miles, the closest it would come for 60,000 years. When Mars gets close to earth it is called Mars opposition and the US Space agency, NASA launches Mars rovers to go land and explore Mars. The Mars Rover called Mars Phoenix is traveling to Mars and will get there in May 2008. Mars can be seen in the eastern sky all of December. On December 23rd, we have a full moon and Mars will be directly below the moon all the way through January 2nd. Make sure you check it out on that day. It will look like a red diamond in the sky. We plan to go to Foothill College observatory to check it out on Friday, just like we did in 2003 when I was two years old