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ESA's Schiaparelli will touch down on Mars on 19 October 2016 the solid ellipse marked on this topographical image. The size of the ellipse doesn't mean that they're a bit vague about where it will land. The launch window is 14-25 March and the ellipse takes account the landing ellipses that would arise from all of those dates.

The landing site is on Meridiani Planum and it's relatively smooth and flat. The higher plains are shown in brown, with lower altitudes in pale yellow and green. The largest crater on the right (east) is Endeavour which NASA's Opportunity rover has been exploring.

A beautiful full-disk image of Mars captured by MOM, India's Mars Orbiter Mission. (Image: ISRO/MOM)

MOM is taking readings of different aspects of the Martian atmosphere. This is important because the results can confirm (or question?) data from other missions.

ExoMars is a joint project between the European Space Agency (ESA) and Roscosmos (Russian space agency). It's the first phase of a mission to search for biochemical indicators of past or present life on Mars.

The TGO (Trace Gas Orbiter) probe was launched today (March 14) on a Proton-M rocket from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

It's designed to detect methane to try to answer the question of what is the origin of methane previously detected on the red planet - biological or geological?

This mid-afternoon 360-degree panorama of Mars- is made up of dozens of images of lower Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater. [Be warned! It's a fantastic picture, but it can take quite a while to load.]

This mid-afternoon panorama was acquired by NASA's Curiosity rover early in April. You can see the rim of Gale Crater – it fills the horizon in the center of the image. Mount Sharp is on the horizon to the right.

There has been some color adjustment of the science to make it resemble how the scene would appear in daytime lighting on Earth.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

A key scientific goal for Curiosity is to better assess when and where conditions on Mars were once suitable for life, in particular microbial life. To further this goal, Curiosity was directed to cross the rugged terrain of Nautkluft Plateau (visible foreground left in the image).

Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS

A recent colorful photo of the Nili Fossae region of Mars. It's on the northwest rim of Isidis impact basin and is full of intriguing geology. It stands out from other parts of Mars because large areas of bedrock are exposed. The HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbit took the picture in February. Pretty cool.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Teachers and parents, here's something your kids might enjoy. Paxi - the Red Planet is a little video in which Paxi isn't a little green man from Mars, but a space alien that ends up on Mars. It's made by ESA (European Space Agency). It gives some facts about Mars and Mars exploration without getting technical or being overly long.

But Paxi does have a British accent, so I don't know if that would be a problem for North American children. You can turn on captioning, but it's so awful that I blush with embarrassment on ESA's behalf. No one would understand the video from that. A few examples, with caption words followed by what was actually said.

I'm Pike see I'm Paxi

My spaceship glad keep navigation system My spaceship galactic navigation system

I'm lost without it there's a positive ahead I'm lost without it. Look. There's a planet up ahead

I hope they're friendly ice at the polls I hope they're friendly. There's ice at the poles

Mars was at opposition on May 22. That means the Sun, the Earth and Mars are in a direct line with Mars and the Sun on opposite sides of the Earth. Mars is closest to the Earth at opposition.

This Hubble Space Telescope image of Mars was taken on May 12, close to opposition. Details as small as 20 – 30 miles across can be seen.

I spotted Mars the other night. Wow! It's very bright and was quite red-looking. Although seems bigger than usual, it'll never look as big as the full Moon.

Here is a set of pictures showing how Mars's apparent size changes throughout this year.

If you get a clear night, go out and have a look.

On 2 June 2003, ESA's Mars Express, Europe's first mission to the Red Planet, was launched from Baikonur cosmodrome. Since beginning science operations in 2004, the orbiter has been helping to answer fundamental questions about the geology, atmosphere, surface environment, history of water and potential for life on Mars.

Artist's view of Mars
Credit & copyright: ESA/D. Ducros