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Here on Earth we are blessed with being able to see some other planets, Mars & Venus etc, with the naked eye on a fairly regular basis thanks to the distance between the planets.

What about from Mars? What planets would be visible to the naked eye on a regular basis from Mars?

Earth would obviously be one of them, as we can see it, but are any other planets close enough to mars at any point to be visible?

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Aside from having Earth visible in the night sky instead of Mars, you would expect the same planets to be visible.

  • Venus will appear as a bright star close to the sun - smaller than we see it, but still very bright.
  • Jupiter and Saturn will be easier to see in the night sky, and it should be possible to pick out Jupiter's four major moons with the naked eye.
  • Uranus is going to be interesting. The average distance from Mars to Uranus is 2.8 billion km which is about the same as the average distance from Earth to Saturn, so I would expect you would be able to see Uranus from Mars - if you know where to look.
  • Neptune is still likely to be invisible to the naked eye.
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I take it you mean jupiters moons? interesting that those would be able to be seen, i bet that would be interesting, can we see none of those from earth? –  RhysW May 10 '13 at 9:46
Doh - yes, moons:-) and yes, you can see them with the naked eye from earth - a few astronomers have reported sighting Callisto and Ganymede. Io and Europa are masked by Jupiter's glare. –  Rory Alsop May 10 '13 at 9:50
And that glare is significantly reduced enough from mars to not 'hide' Io and Europa? That's pretty interesting. Thankyou, –  RhysW May 10 '13 at 9:53
You can actually see Europa from earth if you block out Jupiter with something. Tricky, but apparently doable - I haven't managed it, but have seen all four moons easily with cheap binoculars. –  Rory Alsop May 10 '13 at 9:55

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