 On May 12, 2016, the Hubble Space Telescope captured this striking image of Mars. The planet was 80.5 million kilometers from Earth. This observation was made just a few days before Mars' opposition on May 22, when the Sun and Mars were on exact opposite sides of the Earth. This phenomenon is a result of the difference in orbital periods between Earth's and Mars' orbit. While Earth takes 365 days to travel once around the Sun, Mars takes 687. As a result, Earth makes almost two full orbits in the time it takes Mars to make just one, resulting in a Martian opposition about every 26 months. The next one will be on July 27, 2018.