Artistic Rendering Of Mars

As Mars approaches opposition it begins a period of retrograde motion, which makes it appear to move backwards in a looping motion relative to the background stars. The duration of this retrograde motion is about 72 days.
• Absolute, around the present time
Mars made its closest approach to Earth and maximum apparent brightness in nearly 60,000 years, 55,758,006 km (0.372719 AU), magnitude −2.88, on 27 August 2003 at 9:51:13 UT. This occurred when Mars was one day from opposition and about three days from its perihelion, making Mars particularly easy to see from Earth. The last time it came so close is estimated to have been on September 12, 57 617 BC, the next time being in 2287. However, this record approach was only very slightly closer than other recent close approaches. For instance, the minimum distance on August 22, 1924 was 0.37285 AU, and the minimum distance on August 24, 2208 will be 0.37279 AU.
An email sent during the close approach in 2003 has, in succeeding years, repeatedly spawned hoax emails saying that Mars will make its closest approach for thousands of years, and will look as big as the Moon.