Live coverage: Europe’s Mars mission launches

Around 3.8 billion years ago, an asteroid more than 150 miles across slammed into the Moon and created the Imbrium Basin — the right eye of the fabled Man in the Moon. New research suggests an Imbrium impactor that was two times larger in diameter and 10 times more massive than previous estimates.

A thrilling epoch in the exploration of our solar system came to a close today, as NASA’s Cassini spacecraft made a fateful plunge into the atmosphere of Saturn, ending its 13-year tour of the ringed planet.

Early risers will already be aware that there’s currently a lot of planetary activity in the morning sky, but at dawn in Western Europe on Monday, 2 April, Mars and Saturn will be just 1¼ degrees apart and seen in the same field of view of telescopes at 30x magnification. The waning Moon is close by on the mornings of 7 & 8 April too.