The orbital point where Mars is farthest from the Sun is called aphelion. The term combines “apo,” meaning away from, with “helios,” the Greek word for Sun; the corresponding closest point is perihelion.
Mars follows a noticeably elliptical orbit rather than a perfect circle. Its average distance from the Sun is about 228 million kilometers, but it reaches roughly 249 million kilometers at aphelion and about 207 million kilometers at perihelion. Mars completes one orbit in approximately 687 Earth days.
Aphelion is not the same as opposition or conjunction. Opposition describes Mars appearing opposite the Sun in Earth’s sky, while conjunction occurs when it appears near the Sun. Those are viewing geometries as seen from Earth, not points in Mars’s orbit around the Sun.
Mars’s orbital eccentricity also affects seasonal strength. Because its orbit is elongated, the planet moves faster near perihelion and slower near aphelion, consistent with Kepler’s laws. The seasonal effect is especially noticeable between Mars’s hemispheres.