Right now, and for the rest of the week (June 4), Mars is as close to the Earth as it has been in over a decade. It'll only be 47 million miles away from the Blue Dot, which is downright neighborly compared to the average of 140 million miles.

The last time Mars got this close to Earth was 2003 — we were only 43 million miles away then. But even with the added five million, it's still pretty darn close. When Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the Sun, for example, they're 250 million miles apart.

The close encounter started on Monday. For those living in a city or with bad weather, the Slooh Community Observatory based out Connecticut is live-streaming. And if you can't see it all there's no need to worry, the next wait won't be so long. Mars will do another close fly-by of Earth in 2018.

Source: Sky and Telescope

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