Every 26 months, Earth and Mars come tantalizingly close by virtue of their relative orbits. The closest they’ve been in recent memory was a mere 55.7 million kilometers, a proximity not seen in 60,000 years when it happened in 2003.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://hackaday.com/2024/03/20/the-hunt-for-alien-radio-signals-began-sooner-than-you-think/