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

The long-awaited opposition of Mars on 8 December is a great way to put the icing on top of another great observing year.

Keep the diary free towards the end of May to witness another very close conjunction between two of the major planets in the Solar System.

NASA is close to deciding whether to spend an extra $150 million to send the InSight lander to Mars in 2018 or cancel the mission after an instrument problem made the spacecraft miss a launch opportunity this year, with a verdict on the project’s future expected within weeks, officials said.