Friday 25 July 2014

Siding Springs and Mars

It is all happening - Siding Springs, or comet C/2013 A1, will miss Mars on Oct 19, by only 132,000km, about 1/3 of the distance from Earth to Moon. There are several satellites currently orbiting Mars that will be able to observe this event.

See:  http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-244&utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NASAJPL&utm_content=comet20140725

The history of the discovery and its approach to Mars can be seen here:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/comets/sidingspring/

There some good animations of the orbits of the comet relative to the  Sun and planets.

Enjoy,
wob

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