Professor Mark Sims on the discovery that Beagle 2 made it to the surface

Japan’s planned Martian Moons eXploration mission will carry an ultra-high resolution 8K camera system to the red planet.

Observers in the British Isles and Western Europe should look low to the east about an hour before sunrise on Wednesday, 18 October to see the slim crescent of a very old Moon close to the brightest planet, Venus. Mars is also nearby for the keen-eyed among you, but don’t leave it too late or the growing twilight will drown out the Red Planet.

NASA managers are optimistic the agency’s Opportunity Mars rover will survive a huge dust storm that is preventing sunlight from recharging the robot’s solar arrays, knocking it out of contact with Earth.