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How far away is Mars? The exact answer varies, of course, as both it and our planet are constantly moving along their own orbits around the Sun. But on average, Mars is about 225 million km/140 million miles from Earth. Give or take a few. To most people (myself included) those are just numbers. Big numbers â and really not even all that big in an astronomical sense.
This week, as a box of electronics called New Horizons prepares to complete a nearly 10-year journey to Pluto, it's a good moment to reflect on just how far away even the objects in our astronomical backyard are from us. When astronomers measure distances in solar systems their meter stick is the average distance between Earth and the sun. It's called an astronomical unit, or AU, and it equals about 93 million miles. Earth obviously lives at 1 AU from the sun. Mars is about 1.5 AU.