This has been a most interesting year to follow Mars. If you've been monitoring the Red Planet since the start of 2025, you have no doubt noted the dramatic change in its brightness as well as the occasional interactions it has had with the moon, bright stars and other celestial objects.
Mars travels a little more than half of its orbit each Earth year, and thus has oppositions (that point in the sky where it appears directly opposite to the sun in the sky) every two years plus about 50 days (its "synodic period," which is also the longest for any known planet). Prior to 2025, the last opposition of Mars was on Dec. 8, 2022; after 2025, the next will come on Feb. 19, 2027. It reached opposition this year on Jan. 16 and two nights earlier, on Jan. 14, a nearly full moon passed directly in front of Mars as seen from much of North America.
