Posted on 09/04/2014 4:37:42 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Explanation: On October 19th, a good place to watch Comet Siding Spring will be from Mars. Then, this inbound visitor (C/2013 A1) to the inner solar system, discovered in January 2013 by Robert McNaught at Australia's Siding Spring Observatory, will pass within 132,000 kilometers of the Red Planet. That's a near miss, equivalent to just over 1/3 the Earth-Moon distance. Great views of the comet for denizens of planet Earth's southern hemisphere are possible now, though. This telescopic snapshot from August 29 captured the comet's whitish coma and arcing dust tail sweeping through southern skies. The fabulous field of view includes, the Small Magellanic Cloud and globular star clusters 47 Tucanae (right) and NGC 362 (upper left). Worried about all those spacecraft in Martian orbit? Streaking dust particles from the comet could pose a danger and controllers plan to position Mars orbiters on the opposite side of the planet during the comet's close flyby.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
[Credit & Copyright: Rolando Ligustri (CARA Project, CAST)]
interesting NASA does not have a diameter of nucleus ... http://mars.nasa.gov/comets/sidingspring/
I see Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton. And they ain’t wearing no clothes!
The planetarium program I use on my phone and laptop (Sky Safari) allows you to go to the planet/nearby star system and see what the sky looks like from there.
On the closest approach, Sliding Springs will be at -7.5 or so and cover almost the whole sky.
I’m gonna look for it, but, I bet I won’t be able to see the comet.
:’)
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