Oslo, Norway
Mars tonight
Visible tonight — best around 04:14 at 17° above the East horizon.
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Mars is unmistakably orange to the eye — no other bright object in the sky has quite that colour. Its brightness varies wildly: near opposition it can rival Jupiter; near solar conjunction it's a modest orange dot.
Tonight's altitude
Where Mars sits across the night
What it is
Mars in one paragraph
Half the diameter of Earth, with a thin CO₂ atmosphere (~1% of ours). Surface temperatures average −60 °C. It hosts Olympus Mons — a 22 km-high volcano, the tallest in the solar system — and Valles Marineris, a canyon 4,000 km long. Two small moons: Phobos and Deimos.
Naked eye & binoculars
How to actually see it
Best viewed around opposition (roughly every 26 months), when Earth passes between Mars and the Sun. At opposition Mars rises at sunset and stays up all night. Between oppositions it can still be a good target — just check its rise time and altitude tonight.
Through a telescope
What you'll actually see in the eyepiece
A 100 mm (4-inch) or larger telescope shows the polar ice caps and darker surface markings like Syrtis Major. Wait for steady 'seeing' — turbulence in Earth's atmosphere is what limits Mars detail more than aperture.
Key facts
Mars at a glance
- Distance from Sun
- 228 million km
- Diameter
- 6,779 km
- Year
- 687 Earth days
- Moons
- 2 (Phobos, Deimos)