Do you ever feel like you and a friend are speaking past each other?

Or that you're not sure how to break out of a rut?

I'm Shankar Vedantam, host of the podcast Hidden Brain.

We explore questions that keep you up at night

and provide answers that are grounded in rigorous science.

Join us each week to explore your Hidden Brain.

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Hey, smarty pins.

Close your eyes and pretend you're outside looking up at the night sky.

It's a clear night and there's a billion twinkling stars.

You notice something, a bright, shining object that isn't twinkling like the others.

On closer look, it appears to have a reddish tint.

It isn't a star at all. It's the planet Mars, one of the brightest objects in the night sky.

Hello, I'm brighter.

Anyway, Mars and Earth are neighbors, each traveling around the Sun on their own orbits.

Every two years or so, they reach a point where they're closest to one another.

And when this happens, you can see Mars easily without a telescope.

Astronomers call this the Mars Close Approach.

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