A Little Quantification

My friend Doug and I were discussing the recent Mars phenomenon. Everybody can quote the statistic that "Mars hasn't been this close in almost 60,000 years." But Doug asked what I thought was a pertinent question - so it's closer, but how much closer?

We agreed that it's not too exciting if it's only, say, a mile or two closer than it normally gets.

So I did a little digging, and found this on the Discovery Channel website:

Every 26 months, Earth and Mars pass each other in their respective orbits at a relatively close distance, like the hands of a clock that sweep past each other every hour.

The planets' orbits are not circular, however, and slight irregularities in their elliptical paths occasionally bring the two bodies closer together than usual. Such is the case this year, when the span closes to 34.6 million miles, or about 30 percent closer than normal.

It'll be another 284 years until Mars comes this close again.

So now you know - it's about 30% closer than is typical. And darn bright, too.