Hubble to Mars

I have wondered for some time why we don't use Hubble to look very close up at stars in our solar system. Why do we never see a close up of any surface of any planet near us?

They've used it to take pictures of Jupiter and Saturn. But for Mars, the moon, and the sun they're all too close. You wouldn't be able to see anything. Hubble needs a pretty good distance to be able to see anything clearly.

but they have pictures of Mars from Hubble - but why cant they get a close up of any of these surfaces?

Hi Rezial666, the only star in our solar system is our Sun. As far as planets goes the hubble has looked at our neighbor planets.

Hubble looking at Mars

Stari, I stand corrected...

Originally posted by rezial666
but they have pictures of Mars from Hubble - but why cant they get a close up of any of these surfaces?

I'm sorry, I need to start hitting my refresh button more often. That is the best image of Mars that Hubble is capable of taking. This is why we send orbitors to the planets to get better resolution images of the surface of the planets.

The latest orbitor that has gone to Mars is Mars MRO. If you like close ups of Mars from orbit this site is good.

Here's another good MRO site:

hirise.lpl.arizona.edu...

This one is run by the University of Arizona, who provided the large HiRISE high-resolution imaging camera for the MRO. They are the ones who are processing the images from MRO as they are received.

There are many high-res photos of mars on this site, although some of the highest resolution are HUGE and it takes special software to handle them.