An important discovery has been made on our celestial neighbor, Mars, and the Red Planet will be very close to Earth next week.

During the evening, those looking towards the sky may have noticed a bright orange-red star. That “star” is actually the planet Mars.

Jason Major, a local space blogger for LightsInTheDark.com, said it will be the closest Mars and Earth have come to each other since 2003, which was the closest they have gotten in 60,000 years.

According to Major, the proximity of Mars makes it very bright in Earth’s night sky. He said right now, Mars is actually brighter than Jupiter due to a global dust storm on the planet.

Anyone searching for the planet in the night sky can begin doing so after 8:30 p.m. as it rises in the southeast. It becomes high in the southern sky around midnight.

While it’ll be a close pass, Major said Mars is still millions of miles away.

“The distance between the two planets is only going to be about 35.8 million miles,” Major said.

He said that may sound far, but it’s only about 75 round-trips to the moon. It’ll be at its closest on Tuesday, July 31.

Even with a small backyard telescope, those searching for Mars in the sky may be able to make out some surface features on the Red Planet during the next few weeks, especially if the dust storm settles down.

“You can see brighter spots at the top and bottom, and that’s Mars’ polar ice cap,” Major said.

Major said the European Space Agency made an important discovery in the southern ice cap of Mars with its Mars Express spacecraft.

“Basically a pond of water, or small shallow pool of water about a mile below the ice on Mars’ southern polar ice cap,” Major said.

Major said this is particularly exciting because while humans have found indirect evidence of liquid water on Mars, astronomers haven’t found direct evidence of it.

“Here on Earth, where’s there’s water, there’s almost invariably life,” Major explained. “What we want to find out is this the same case on Mars? Is something living in that shallow pool of salty water below the Martian ice.”

By the middle of August, Mars will start to become fainter as Mars and Earth travel farther away from each other.