♂ Mars’s cycles

Mars comes back to the same place against the Sun about every 780 days, a little over two years. It rises out of the Sun’s glare in the dawn sky and climbs higher each morning. As the Earth comes round to overtake it, Mars slows, stops and runs backwards for two to two and a half months—a retrograde—and in the middle of it stands opposite the Sun: up all night, at its closest and brightest. Then it turns forward again and sinks slowly into the evening twilight to meet the Sun and begin again.