A new ground-based image of Mars is being touted as one of the sharpest ever taken from Earth. Astronomers took advantage of Mars’ historic close approach, the nearest in about 60,000 years, to photograph the red planet with the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii. The result is “perhaps the sharpest image of Mars ever made from the ground,” said Jeremy Bailey of the Anglo-Australian Observatory and the Australian Center for Astrobiology at Macquarie University in Sydney.