FOR RELEASE: 6:00 a.m. (EDT) AUGUST 27, 2003

PHOTO NO.: STScI-PRC03-22

HUBBLE'S CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH MARS


NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took this close-up of the red planet Mars
when it was just 34,648,840 miles (55,760,220 km) away. This color
image was assembled from a series of exposures taken between 6:20 p.m.
and 7:12 p.m. EDT Aug. 26 with Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera
2. The picture was taken just 11 hours before the planet made its
closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years.

Credit: NASA, J. Bell (Cornell U.) and M. Wolff (Space Science Inst.)
Additional image processing and analysis support from: K. Noll and
A. Lubenow (STScI); M. Hubbard (Cornell U.); R. Morris (NASA/JSC);
P. James (U. Toledo); S. Lee (U. Colorado); and T. Clancy, B. Whitney
and G. Videen (Space Science Inst.); and Y. Shkuratov (Kharkov U.)

To see and read more, please click on
http://hubblesite.org/news/2003/22

The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is operated by the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA),
for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of
international cooperation between NASA and the European Space
Agency (ESA).

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