This has been cropping up on occasion for the last couple of years. If I were motivated, I could find a few other threads from the previous years. in 2003 IIRC, the Earth was near apehelion, Mars was simultaneously near perehelion and at opposition, which means that Mars was as close to the Earth as it has been for the past 50000 years or so. An article talking about this made some mention that Mars in a small telescope would look as large as the Moon to the unaided eye. Someone else embellished it, omitting the mention of the telescope and in addition didn't specify the year, so every year someone sees the article and assumes it is talking about this year.

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