KSC-05-S-00250

With so much interest in the exploration of Mars, our NASA Direct question board has had quite a response. Are you ready to answer a few of our viewers' questions now? Sure. Let's go. Let's get started. Our first question comes from Patrick, and he's eight years old and he's from Telford. Why is it so important that the rocket has to be launched within just two hours on Aug. 10? What does it mean when you say that Mars is in opposition to Earth? Okay, well, I think I'll answer the opposition part first. Forgive my finger puppets, but, this is the Sun and this is the Earth, and this is Mars.Opposition means that all three are aligned, and Earth and Mars are on the same side of the planet as, the same side of the Sun as each other. So they're right close together. So opposition is the time that they are closest as they go around in their orbits, and it's also the time that we can see them most readily from Earth because the Sun is fully illuminating Mars as we see it, and it's also closest to us, so we can see it very brightly in the sky. And it's a really good time to launch our spacecraft, because it'll mean that the distance it travels from Earth and it, you know, the planets are