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At a space scale it's a close pass.

To be fair, various media outlets are also calling it a "close pass".

You're right, of course, that it's much larger than the distance from the Earth to the Moon, but that doesn't stop mainstream media from calling it a close pass.

A "close pass" here means "it may even be visible from Earth in a normal observatory sized telescope!"

Close pass isn't some FUD. It's a scientific definition. It's even defined in the article I linked.