NASA's Mars fleet braces for comet encounter

NASA's Mars fleet braces for comet encounter

Comet Siding Spring is hurtling toward its Red Planet rendezvous with Mars, while NASA's Mars spacecraft are aiming their instruments at it and moving themselves out of harm's way.

A comet will give Mars a historically close shave next weekend, and NASA aims to be ready for the dramatic cosmic event.

The space agency has already trained a number of its science assets on Comet Siding Spring, which will zoom within 87,000 miles (139,500 kilometers) of Mars on Oct. 19 — about one-third the distance between Earth and the moon. And NASA's fleet of Red Planet orbiters and rovers will be watching on the big day, studying the comet and its influence on Mars' atmosphere....

I'm kinda excited in my nerdy sort of way. I hope we get to see some HD pics and Video, that would be cool, But I won't be holding my breath. Anyway, here's another link and a animated video.

Link with more details

Gee, Mars has been having all the close encounters with comets lately. I'm a little jealous. It would be kinda cool to see a comet pass between the earth and moon.

a reply to: rickymouse


With all the crap we went through with Y2K and 2012 if a comet passed that close we'd probably have mass suicides by people convinced it was the apocalypse.

a reply to: SLAYER69

It would have to be an acometalypse

One of the "big-name" comets not too long ago was on a crash course with Mars (by that I mean when it was months away there was a "1:1,000,000" chance it could hit it because they weren't sure what effect Jupiter would have on it). Anyways, I watched an animation (I know I know) about what a comet collision would look like....

Long story longer, I was telling a friend that I don't even care about the slim chance of a collision, I want to see vidoe from a rover or an orbiter of the fly-by!

Cool stuff indeed!!

a reply to: SLAYER69

a reply to: SLAYER69

I know we have assets on Mars and all..But I am kind of hoping to see a collision. Scientific curiosity and all. We talk about what might happen when a rocky planet is hit by a comet but we don't really know for sure what might happen, nor how to scale it.

We do have a reference for what happens when comet strikes a gaseous planet, but I don't think we have directly observed a direct hit on a rocky planet.

Part of me wants to believe there are things on Mars that we may want to ... Discover ... Someday. That's the only reason why I don't actively hope for collision. But you're right, it wouldn't be for naught. Data could be gathered that would normally take decades.

a reply to: projectvxn

a reply to: SLAYER69

I bet the comet doesn't hit. Wonder if the secret space program will evacuate their mars base.