Mars made a close pass by the Moon on July 17, 2003. As viewed from northern New Jersey, this is as about as close as it got. (Viewed from southern Florida, the edge of the Moon covered Mars.)

This image shows directly how much smaller Mars appears than the Moon. Mars was just over 19.5" wide while the Moon appeared 31' 08" wide, over 95 times larger. The Moon is actually about half the diameter of Mars. A closer view is shown below.

Astro-Physics 155mm (6.1 inch) refractor at f14. Three 1/60th second exposures on Fuji Provia 100F color slide film. July 17, 2003, 4:46 a.m. EDT. Photographed from northern New Jersey. ©2003

Mars passing by the Moon on July 17, 2003.

Astro-Physics 155mm (6.1 inch) refractor at f14. 125 1/60th second frames selected from 600 taken over 1 minute using a Philips ToUcam Pro and K3CCDTools, stacked in Registax and processed in Photoshop. Because the Moon moves noticeably with respect to Mars over a minute, the images were processed twice, once registering for the Moon and once for Mars, and then combined at the average position. July 17, 2003, 4:45 a.m. EDT. Photographed from northern New Jersey. ©2003