In pictures: Mars close approach

1 of 9 Mars outshines everything but the Moon and Venus in the night sky and it has just made its closest pass to Earth for 60,000 years.

2 of 9 Stargazers around the world are gathering to view Mars...

3 of 9 ...from Europe, at the Science City building in Valencia, Spain...

4 of 9 ...at the top of Cedars Mountain in Lebanon...

5 of 9 ...and in Australia at the Sydney Observatory.

6 of 9 With a telescope you can see the white polar caps.

7 of 9 But it is the Hubble Space Telescope that is taking spectacular pictures of Mars during the close approach...

8 of 9 ...including this image made from a series of exposures capturing the Red Planet in unprecedented detail.

9 of 9 An infrared telescope in Hawaii shot this spectacular picture of Mars.