Opposition is when the planet lines up exactly 180 degrees away from the sun. You would think that this would be the closest as well, but I can see with elliptical orbits this may not be so.
But that site also says “Next Tuesday, Oct. 13, Mars will officially reach opposition, and maximum brightness in the sky.” which I find weird since it is further away than it was the week before. Unless it has something to do with the sunlit disc we are seeing.
For what it’s worth, this is also the time (or rather, part of the span of time) when a planet goes retrograde: It’ll appear to move “backwards” from its usual movement, because Earth is passing it.
Highjacking somewhat, what is the point in Venus path, as seen from Earth, where it’s brightest? It gets closer and closer…but also more and more crescent. When it’s at its very closest, it’s a “New Venus” and quite dark. There has to be a particular angle where it is brightest. I Googled the tar out of this and didn’t find an answer.
It’s not just the entirety of the disc, there’s also a minimal shadow effect. At opposition, shadows of mountains and other features on Mars are minimized, so there’s more light reflected back. We see the same effect with the Moon for about an hour or so around the exact time of a full moon. It’s significantly brighter during that time compared with just before and after it. More than can be accounted for by the amount of disc that’s lit up.
@cannon_gray, I’m glad that you’re interested in the content here, but we prefer that posters not bump old threads unless they have some new information to add on the topic. A mission to Mars isn’t really relevant to the topic of how the planets look from Earth. In other threads, you seem to be bumping the thread to repeat information others have already provided. If you wish to discuss a mission to Mars, possibly involving Musk as a financier and/or payload, I invite you to start a new thread in the appropriate category (in this case, probably MPSIMS, unless you have some specific questions you’d like to ask).