Nasa s extensive fleet of science assets particularly those orbiting and roving mars have front row seats to image and study this once in a lifetime flyby.
Comet siding spring update.
Mcnaught achieved this triumph on january 3 2013 using the 0 5 meter 20 inch uppsala schmidt telescope at siding spring observatory in new south wales australia.
Comet buzzes mars in once in a lifetime flyby the comet siding spring has successfully zoomed by mars in a super rare close encounter that is one for the history books.
Siding spring officially designated comet c 2013 a1 made its closest approach to mars at 2 28 p m.
An illustration by nasa depicts the comet siding spring 2013 a1 traveling toward mars a comet the size of a small mountain and.
Hurtling through space at about 35 miles 56 kilometers per second comet siding spring c 2013 a1 will sweep very close to the planet mars today.
19 at a distance of approximately 87 000 miles.
C 2013 a1 siding spring is an oort cloud comet discovered on 3 january 2013 by robert h.
19 comet c 2013 a1 comet siding spring will pass within about 87 000 miles 139 500 km of mars.
Nasa s hubble space telescope has produced a unique composite image of comet siding spring as it made its never before seen close passage of a comet by mars.
Update october 18 2014.
At the time of its discovery comet siding spring was farther from the sun than jupiter about 7 2 times farther away from the sun than earth.
At the time of discovery it was 7 2 au from the sun and located in the constellation lepus comet c 2013 a1 probably took millions of years to come from the oort cloud.