School children in uniform struggled with adults to get a ticket which will allow each of them to look at Mars for two minutes at the Jakarta Planetarium.

"It's amazing. Kids and housewives are very enthusiastic," said Dewi Kurniawati, an amateur astronomer among the lucky ones to walk away with a ticket.

Thousands of people packed the Boscha observatory in the West Java city of Bandung, causing a traffic jam, Elshinta radio reported.

From Wednesday, the Red Planet will be a galactically trifling 55.76 million kilometres (34.65 million miles) from Earth, according to Belgian astronomer Jean Meeus, who says the two planets last came as close nearly 60,000 years ago.

The fourth planet from the Sun, Mars will appear red and orange and as bright as Jupiter, the giant of the solar system.

SPACE.WIRE