Earth/Mars Orbit Simulator
At the end of the month, the orbits of Mars and Earth will bring the two close together again. The last close encounter with Mars was in August of 2003 which is closer that what is coming up, but the last close encounter for a while.
Earth and Sky linked to a nifty Earth/Mars orbit simulator from the University Corporation of Atmospheric Research that visualizes the dance of the two planets around the sun. Even though we understand the different orbits and speeds around the sun make the close encounters infrequent, it is still interesting to see it in action and see why it is so infrequent.
By the Way, some of the emails from the last Mars close encounter are floating around again; especially the one that says that Mars will look as big as the Moon in the evening. While that would be very cool, it isn't true so please don't pass that one around.
Mars photo from kokogiak
