The Earth’s two closest neighboring planets, Mars and Venus, will look so close together in the nights ahead.

You can see them both low in the southwestern sky after sunset and only for a short time. The two are just above the horizon. Venus is the brighter of the two. Mars is faint enough against the light of twilight to be difficult to see. Binoculars will help.

In the nights ahead, the two will get closer and closer. By the middle of July, the two will be less than one degree apart.

Even though the two look close, they couldn’t be farther apart. This is a planetary lineup of a major scale. Mars is 226 million miles from us. Venus is 130 million miles from us. That tells us that the two planets are 94 million miles apart and yet they look so close.

The two planets will only appear a half degree apart on July 12. You’ll definitely benefit by using binoculars then.