A rare orbital alignment on Monday will bring Mars and Earth closer together than the planets have been since 2005. This will make Mars brighter in the sky than it usually is, rivaling even the much larger Jupiter, which is usually the brightest object in the nighttime sky after the moon.
The distance between the two planets ranges from about 33 million miles to about 249 million miles, depending on where each is in its orbit around the sun. But on Monday they will pass each other at just about 46.8 million miles (75.3 million km) apart, and even casual skywatchers will notice the difference without the aid of a telescope.
You can watch a livestream of the celestial event as captured by the Slooh Solar System telescope above, and you can read more about it here.
Slooh is a TIME partner. You can go to Slooh.com to join and watch this live broadcast, snap and share your own photos during the event, chat with audience members and interact with the hosts, and personally control Slooh’s telescopes.
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