Live · Mars

How far is Mars from Earth right now?

How far Mars is from Earth right now is the centre-to-centre distance below, in kilometres, miles, astronomical units and light travel time. NASA’s extremes are 54.6 million km at the closest and 401.4 million km when Mars is on the far side of the Sun.

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Computing the distance from your device’s clock…

Why the distance changes

Mars is outside Earth’s orbit, so the distance is smallest near opposition, when Earth sits between Mars and the Sun, and largest near conjunction, when Mars is on the far side of the Sun. NASA’s Mars Fact Sheet lists the extremes as 54.6 million km and 401.4 million km. A typical opposition is not that close: the same sheet’s mean opposition distance is 78.3 million km.

Both orbits are ellipses, and Mars’s is the more stretched, so some oppositions are much closer than others. The close ones come when opposition falls near Mars’s perihelion, in a cycle of about 15 to 17 years. The ordinary repeat is the synodic period, about 780 days, so a new opposition arrives every 26 months. The live figure uses the JPL 3000 BC–3000 AD elements shared with the distance table. The nominal distance error for Mars is about 30,000 km. At 54.6 million km a radio signal takes about 3 minutes; at 401 million km it takes about 22 minutes, which is why a rover cannot be driven live from Earth.

Other distances

Back to every body on the distance table. The same clock also fills these pages:

• Sun
• Moon
• Mercury
• Venus
• Mars
• Jupiter
• Saturn
• Uranus
• Neptune
• Pluto

Frequently asked questions

How far is Mars from Earth right now?

The figure is the centre-to-centre distance at the time shown, computed in your browser from JPL’s approximate Keplerian elements for 3000 BC–3000 AD. The nominal distance error for Mars on that fit is about 30,000 km. It is not a JPL Horizons ephemeris.

What is the closest and farthest Mars gets?

NASA’s Mars Fact Sheet lists 54.6 million km at the minimum and 401.4 million km at the maximum. The mean distance at opposition on that sheet is 78.3 million km, so a typical close approach is farther than the record minimum.

Why is Mars much closer some years than others?

Both orbits are ellipses, and Mars’s orbit is noticeably stretched. The closest oppositions happen when Earth catches Mars near perihelion, about every 15 to 17 years. A new opposition still comes every 26 months, but many of those leave Mars more than 100 million km away.

How long does a signal take to reach Mars?

About 3 minutes at 54.6 million km and about 22 minutes at 401 million km. The live light-travel time is the one-way delay for the distance shown. That lag is why rovers are not steered in real time from Earth.

Sources: JPL Approximate Positions of the Planets · NASA Mars Fact Sheet for 54.6 million km, 401.4 million km and the 78.3 million km mean opposition distance.