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philipy
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BEST ANSWER  chosen by asker   |  philipy  |  June 30, 2009 07:36 PM
On our present orbits Earth and Mars don't get at all close.

The nearest they get is roughly 0.4 of an AU, or about 35m miles.. An AU being an "astronomical unit", which is the distance between the Earth and Sun.

Mars got that close in 2003, and it'll be at its closest again in just another 60,000 years!

However it's possible that the orbits of all the planets in the solar system can gradually change over billions of years, so that the two could in fact collide someday. The chances of that are very small, and it couldn't happen for at least another billion years though.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3184157.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8093005.stm

http://www38.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=earth+mars
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