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A comet will be buzzing Mars this Sunday

Streetwind

By Streetwind
in Science & Spaceflight

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Streetwind

Streetwind

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http://www.space.com/27415-comet-siding-spring-mars-flyby-preview.html

Comet C/2013 A1 "Siding Spring" is a pristine Oort cloud object that has never felt the sun's heat before at any point in the history of the solar system. But something knocked it out of its ancestral home in the deep reaches of interstellar space while mankind was still just a concept, and on October 19th, 2014, it will hurtle past Mars at a distance comparable to a mere third of the Earth-Moon distance. Never before has an event like this occurred while humanity has had spaceflight capability.

"All five operational spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet  NASA's Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and MAVEN probes, India's Mangalyaan spacecraft and Europe's Mars Express  will observe the flyby. And NASA's Opportunity and Curiosity rovers will crane their necks up to watch from the Martian surface as well."

To give an idea of how close this flyby really is: all these space probes have had their orbits adjusted so that they are in the shadow of the planet when the wake of the comet hits it. Their operators do not want to risk direct exposure, especially to protect the fragile solar panels.

The most powerful imaging equipment should be onboard Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Everyone wish the operating teams luck for some truly stunning and insightful snapshots! :)

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SuperFastJellyfish

SuperFastJellyfish

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http://www.space.com/27415-comet-siding-spring-mars-flyby-preview.html

Comet C/2013 A1 "Siding Spring" is a pristine Oort cloud object that has never felt the sun's heat before at any point in the history of the solar system.

This is just speculation. We have no idea what gravitational interactions have happened to this object in the past ~4 billion years. Otherwise, informative post! :)

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-Velocity-

-Velocity-

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It looks like I might get lucky and actually have clear skies this weekend! If so, it would be only the second time I've gotten to observe since Nov. 2012... weekends, clear skies, and favorable moon phases don't happen all at the same time very often around here :(

I wonder if Mars and the comet will be high enough above the horizon for me to catch it on Saturday evening. It looks like it will be on the Ophiuchus/Sagittarius border, so just above the western horizon after sunset. Trees are a problem around here though, a big problem. I guess I would be observing it about 18 hours before closest approach though. Hopefully the weather forecast holds.

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-Velocity-

-Velocity-

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Will be interesting pictures... This must be a first in some way or another.

Well, it was the first time we discovered a comet on a possible collision course with an inner planet, and it took us several months to rule out the possibility of an impact. It could have just as easily been Earth- no actually, it could have MORE easily been Earth, since Earth is a bigger target to hit. I wonder what people's reactions would have been- I would assume we would have started a rush program to build several nuclear interceptors. Nuclear explosives are the only tech we have that could possibly deliver enough of a punch in the short time we would have had before impact. Other proposed means of asteroid/comet deflection take too much time. That this comet is so small (700 meters in diameter) would certainly help our ability to push it off course with nuclear explosions.

- - - Updated - - -

Please make some pictures for me since my brother killed my telescope

It's a large dobsonian, so it's for visual only.

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PakledHostage

PakledHostage

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Closest approach to Mars occurs in about 30 minutes from the time of this writing. Slooh is doing a live broadcast starting in about 15 minutes.

Edit - The broadcast starts in about 7 minutes now. Here's the link: http://live.slooh.com/stadium/live/comet-siding-spring-swings-by-on-a-close-approach-to-mars

Edited by PakledHostage
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PakledHostage

PakledHostage

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Slooh just said that they're going off the air now but that they will be back in about 5 and a half hours from now for a follow up. They are hoping to have some data and/or images to show by then. The MAVEN project scientist that they interviewed (sorry, I missed his name) indicated that they already had data on the ground from MAVEN when he signed off a few minutes ago.

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PakledHostage

PakledHostage

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NASA issued a press release this morning stating that all three of their Mars orbiters remain healthy following the flyby of comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring yesterday. I don't see any updates on the ESA's Mars Express mission page about the status of their orbiter and India doesn't seem to have posted any updates on MOM's mission page either. I trust that those two missions fared similarly well. With that behind us, I'm looking forward to seeing some images!

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