Mars, Jupiter, Saturn Opposition Dates 2026–2028

On 28 October 2026 none of the three outer planets is at opposition. The most recent was Saturn’s, at 4 October 2026, 17:59 IST, 24 days earlier; Saturn is still in the retrograde around it and turns direct on 11 December 2026. The next is Jupiter’s, at 11 February 2027, 05:58 IST, 106 days away, and Mars will follow only 8 days later, at 19 February 2027, 21:20 IST. Jupiter’s opposition of 2026 came early in the year, on 10 January 2026.

Every figure below is read off a table of all the oppositions of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn from 2003 to 2035, computed from the JPL DE421 ephemeris. Before the table was written, the generator reproduced the 12 Mars, Jupiter and Saturn stations already in the site’s station table, so the retrograde dates here agree with the retrograde tables. Times are IST.

What an Opposition Is

A planet is at opposition when its longitude, seen from the Earth, is exactly 180° from the Sun’s. The Sun, the Earth and the planet then lie very nearly on one line, with the Earth in the middle. Only a planet whose orbit lies outside the Earth’s can get there, which is why Mars, Jupiter and Saturn have oppositions and Mercury and Venus never do. Opposite the Sun, the planet rises around sunset and is above the horizon for most of the night. That is the whole of what this page says about seeing one.

Because both longitudes are measured in one zodiac, subtracting the ayanamsa from each changes nothing in the difference: the opposition falls at the same instant whether a calendar works in the sidereal zodiac of the panchang or the tropical one of western almanacs. The sign does change. In 6 of the 7 oppositions of 2026 to 2028 the planet sits in a different sign in the tropical zodiac than in the Lahiri one; the exception is Saturn in October 2027, which is in Aries both ways.

And in every row of the table, all 78 of them, the Sun and the planet sit at the same degree of signs seven apart, because none of them is that close to a sign edge. Two grahas seventh from each other are what the samsaptak page lists as a samsaptak pair, so each opposition is also a Sun samsaptak with that planet; here that is recorded only as an arrangement of the sky.

Opposition Dates 2026–2028

Seven oppositions in three years, and only one of them is Mars’s: Mars had one in 2025, has one in 2027, and the one after that falls on 25 March 2029, so neither 2026 nor 2028 gets one. Jupiter and Saturn have one a year here. Over the longer span that is not quite a rule: no Jupiter opposition falls in 2013 or 2025, and none of Saturn’s in 2033, because a December opposition is followed by one in January of the year after next.

Jupiter’s 2027 opposition will fall with Jupiter at Cancer 27°, and Mars 8 days later will be in Leo; the Jupiter transit 2027 and Mars transit 2027 pages follow each through its signs that year. Saturn’s 2027 opposition, on 18 October 2027, will come with Saturn only 0.2° into Aries, and its retrograde will carry it back into Pisces on 20 October 2027, as the Saturn transit 2027 page sets out. A calendar using an ayanamsa a fraction of a degree larger than Lahiri’s would put that opposition in Pisces. Saturn’s 2028 opposition, on 30 October 2028, and Jupiter’s of 12 March 2028 close the window.

Why the Opposition Falls Mid-Retrograde

A planet’s retrograde motion is apparent: nothing in its orbit reverses. The Earth moves faster round the Sun than any of the three outer planets and, once a synodic cycle, passes it on the inside. While it does, the line of sight from the Earth to the planet swings backwards against the stars, the way a slower car seems to slip back as you overtake it. The overtaking is at its closest at opposition, so the opposition sits in the middle of the backward stretch.

The table bears that out. In each of the 7 retrogrades of 2026 to 2028, the opposition falls 49 to 51 percent of the way from the station retrograde to the station direct, never more than 2.2 days off the exact middle. The retrograde shadow dates page carries the same retrogrades out to their pre- and post-shadows, and the per-planet pages list every window to 2031 for Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

Mars Closest to Earth: Every Opposition 2003–2035

The February 2027 opposition is the farthest of all 16 in the table: 101.4 million km. The nearest was in August 2003, at 55.8 million km, so the far one is about 1.8 times the distance. The runner-up for farthest, 4 March 2012, came within a million km of it. After 2027, the next Mars opposition under 60 million km is on 16 September 2035.

The reason, in standard astronomy, is that Mars’s orbit is markedly more elliptical than the Earth’s, so its distance from the Sun swings far more over its year. An opposition that falls while Mars is near the far end of its orbit leaves a wide gap between the two planets even with the Earth in line. The far end and the near end sit in fixed directions, and the table shows it: all three oppositions under 60 million km fall with Mars in sidereal Capricorn or Aquarius, and all five over 95 million km with Mars in Cancer, Leo or Virgo. The retrograde length follows suit, from 60 days around the nearest opposition to 81 around a far one.

How Far Jupiter and Saturn Are at Opposition

With the Earth on the planet’s side of the Sun, the distance at opposition is close to the least of that cycle. For Jupiter that distance ranges from 591.3 million km (27 September 2022) to 666.7 million km (3 April 2005) across the table. Its three oppositions of 2026 to 2028 come out at 633.1, 652.4 and 664.3 million km, each farther than the last. Saturn is about twice as far: 1201.5 million km at the nearest (25 December 2032) and 1353.7 million km at the farthest (27 June 2018). Its oppositions of 2026 to 2028 run the other way, 1261.7, 1245.6 and 1230.8 million km.

Closest Approach Is Not Always the Opposition Day

If both orbits were circles centred on the Sun, the least distance would come at the instant of opposition. They are ellipses, so the distance is still shrinking or already growing at that instant, and the minimum slides to one side. For Mars the slide reaches 202 hours, about 8.4 days, in 2016: opposition on 22 May 2016, closest on 31 May 2016. For Jupiter it never exceeds 37 hours, under two days, and for Saturn 5.2 hours; in 23 of Saturn’s 31 rows the closest approach is on the opposition’s own IST date. In 2027 both of the early oppositions shift a date: Jupiter is closest on 10 February 2027, the day before, and Mars on 20 February 2027, the day after. The Moon does a smaller version of the same thing each month, which the supermoon dates page measures as the gap between full moon and perigee.

How Often Each Planet Comes to Opposition

The gap is the synodic period, the time the Earth takes to lap the planet once. Mars, the fastest of the three, is the hardest to lap, which is why it comes round only about every 26 months. Jupiter and Saturn move so slowly that the Earth catches them a little over a year after each opposition: about 13 months for Jupiter, so its date drifts about 34 days later each year, and 12.4 months for Saturn, a drift of about 13 days. That is why Saturn’s date moves from 4 October in 2026 to 18 October in 2027 and 30 October in 2028.

What This Page Does Not Give

There is no reading here of an opposition for any sign or any person, and no advice tied to one; a table of distances and instants has no way to test whether a reading holds. Nor are there brightness figures, or viewing guidance beyond the sunset geometry above. Closest approach is printed as a date only, because the distance changes very little around its minimum and the exact instant is not worth quoting.

In Brief

• Opposition: the planet 180° from the Sun with the Earth between, at the same instant in either zodiac
• Already past: Jupiter 10 January 2026, Saturn 4 October 2026
• Next: Jupiter 11 February 2027, Mars 19 February 2027, Saturn 18 October 2027
• Mars 2027: 101.4 million km, the farthest Mars opposition from 2003 to 2035; the next under 60 million km is in 2035
• How often: Mars every 26 months or so, Jupiter 13, Saturn 12.4
• Retrograde: each opposition falls near the middle of the planet’s apparent backward motion