April 8 will leave topical Mars visible from Earth

Bring out the telescopes because on April 8, Mars will come nearest to Earth as it has since 2007 in a configuration astronomers call “opposition.” This is when both Earth and Mars, the third and fourth planets out from the sun, respectively, fall in a straight line out from our sun. If the skies are clear, even with a small telescope one may view a number of topical Martian features, including the polar ice caps.