http://www.spectroscopymag.com/spectroscopy/data/articlestandard/spectroscopy/122003/50622/article.pdf

"According to Italian mathematician
Aldo Vitagliano of Naples University
(Italy), the planet Mars, named after
the mythological Roman god of war,
will come closer to the Earth this
summer than it has in more than 50,000
years. How this amazing figure was arrived
at is an interesting story. Belgian author
and mathematician Jean Meeus described
how the distance between the orbits of
Mars and Earth varied in the distant past
(1). Meeus calculated that Mars has not
been closer to Earth since the year 73,000
B.C. His findings were published in news
media all over the world. However, Meeus
now says his initial calculations, which
were based on the work of French astronomer
Pierre Bretagnon, are off by
more than 20,000 years. After his book
was published, Meeus contacted Vitagliano
and asked him to investigate the motion
of Mars by numerical integration. In
April 2002, Vitagliano told Meeus the last
time Mars was closer to Earth than this
year’s spectacular opposition was on September
12 of the year 57,617 B.C."

BD