Posted by tourdemars to General News at August 27, 2003 12:00 PM

You may already know that 41 minutes before sunrise this morning, Mars drifted closer to Earth than it ever has in human history. A mere 34,646,418 miles separated the planets. The last flyby of this proximity occurred nearly 60,000 years ago, when perhaps a dreamy Neanderthal paused in the thankless grind of natural selection to behold the heavens.