• Question: Why do the planets appear closer to the Earth at the moment?

    Asked by billybunsen to Asif, Laura, Lena, Sean, Viv on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Lena Ciric

      Lena Ciric answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      There are five planets that were easily visible to us over the last week – Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn. This is because the orbits of all the planets including Earth have come together. We’re not getting any closer to the planets, it’s just that they’re in our eye-line from Earth.

    • Photo: Sean Murphy

      Sean Murphy answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      On August 27th 2003, Earth made its closest approach to Mars in nearly 60,000 years. The two worlds, center-to-center, will be just 56 million kilometers apart–a short distance on the scale of the solar system. The last people to come so close to Mars were Neanderthals.

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