How far is mars from earth?
First the short answer. Mars has an average distance from the Sun that is about 1.5 times that of the Earth’s average distance from the Sun. This means that when Earth and Mars are closest to each other, the distance would be about 1.5 – 1.0 =0.5 times the average distance of Earth from the Sun. When Earth and Mars are on opposite sides of the Sun, the distance between would be about 1.5 + 1.0 = 2.5 times the average distance of the Earth from the Sun. Astronomers, and later space exploration scientists, have been working at measuring the average Earth-Sun distance, called the Astronomical Unit, for several hundred years and arrived at a value of about 149,598,000 kilometers (since a spacecraft crashed into Mars because someone didn’t use units of measure like meters, kilograms, etc… I steadfastly refuse to state such distances in miles). If this is all you wanted to know that’s fine. If you want to continue the story, read on! When you’re thinking about taking a trip, one of the fir
Because Earth and Mars take different periods of time to orbit the Sun (365.25 days for the Earth, and 686 days for Mars), the distance between the two planets varies. Mars also has an elliptical orbit that moves in and out from the Sun by 43 million kilometres every orbit. So, at their closest, Earth and Mars can be no less than 54 million km apart, while at their most distant they are as much as 400 million km apart. Return to top.
