{"id":1575,"date":"2014-10-18T05:07:01","date_gmt":"2014-10-18T05:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=1575"},"modified":"2016-09-09T15:08:02","modified_gmt":"2016-09-09T15:08:02","slug":"comet-siding-springs-close-encounter-with-mars-draws-near","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/comet-siding-springs-close-encounter-with-mars-draws-near\/","title":{"rendered":"Comet Siding Spring’s close encounter with Mars draws near"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Belinda Smith<\/a>, The Conversation<\/em><\/p>\n

Astronomers world-wide are gearing up for what NASA calls a \u201conce in a lifetime<\/a>\u201d event: the Comet Siding Spring will swing past Mars on its maiden voyage through the solar system in the early hours next Monday (AEDT), and thanks to a fleet of spacecraft and rovers on and around the Red Planet, we\u2019ll have a front row view.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpace is big, so we don\u2019t really expect a comet to come so close to a planet like Mars or Earth,\u201d Tanya Hill, curator of the Melbourne Planetarium, said.<\/p>\n

Michael Brown, an observational astronomer at Monash University, said the passage of Comet Siding Spring \u2013 formally known C\/2013 A1 \u2013 is the closest passage of a comet we\u2019ve ever seen, with the exception of comets that crashed into Jupiter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll pass closer to Mars than the distance between the Earth and the moon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And while NASA alone has 16 instruments<\/a> waiting to monitor the comet\u2019s flyby, other space agencies and Earth-based telescopes will keep an eye on the comet.<\/p>\n

Comet C\/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) and 47 Tucanae<\/a> from Phil Hart<\/a> on Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An Aussie astronomical find<\/h2>\n

Comet Siding Spring is a relatively recent discovery. Rob NcNaught, astronomer at the ANU and the Siding Spring Observatory<\/a> in New South Wales, first spotted the comet on January 3 last year.<\/p>\n

Jonti Horner, an astronomer at the University of Southern Queensland, said the comet is probably on its first pass through the solar system since it formed 4.5 billion years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese [comets] are probably the most pristine leftovers of the formation of the planets [in the solar system] we have. In the case of this comet, it\u2019s been held in cold storage in what\u2019s called the Oort Cloud<\/a>, a vast reservoir of comets halfway to the nearest star, since the solar system formed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re really interesting to look at if you want to find out how the planets were made. Certainly, it\u2019s quite likely the water on the Earth was delivered by comets like this, colliding with the Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Protecting the goods<\/h2>\n

Dr Hill said that with NASA and other space agencies having so many craft circling in orbit around Mars, \u201cit\u2019s a great opportunity for them to try to use their cameras and instruments to get a close-up view of the comet\u201d.<\/p>\n

Comet Siding Spring is about to fly historically close to Mars. The encounter could spark Martian auroras, a meteor shower, and other unpredictable effects.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But, said Dr Brown, there\u2019s a catch to this front row seat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have to protect that equipment. The comet will pass Mars at about 50km\/s so even a small grain of dust running into spacecraft at that speed is going to do a lot of damage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the comet\u2019s travelling through the solar system it\u2019s closer to the sun than it normally is, and the heat of the sun is burning off some of the ices and gas that make up the comet. That boiling off of ice and gas is pushing away dust particles which are travelling with the comet at more than 50km\/s, and it\u2019s those particles the spacecraft need to be protected from.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the comet is shedding 100kg of dust per second, so NASA has prepared<\/a> \u2013 and in some cases moved \u2013 its orbiting spacecraft to reduce the chance of damage.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

Halley\u2019s comet, as photographed by the Giotto probe in 1986.<\/span>
\nNASA<\/span>, CC BY<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Comet Siding Spring isn\u2019t the first to be photographed by spacecraft in our solar system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a European spacecraft [the Giotto probe<\/a>] that was sent to Halley\u2019s comet back in the 1980s and it got very close to the comet and took some awesome pictures but it did get a knockout punch by one or two pieces of comet dust,\u201d Dr Brown said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is historical precedent for spacecraft getting damaged by comet dust, but admittedly that spacecraft was heading almost right towards the comet.\u201d<\/p>\n

So can we see it?<\/h2>\n

Viewing the comet and Mars at the same time would be a unique thing to see, and while initial reports claimed that amateur astronomers would be able to see the action using a small telescope or even binoculars, it\u2019s unlikely their equipment will be able to pick up the comet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very small comet \u2013 the snowball in the middle is just 400m wide \u2013 so from Earth it\u2019s very unimpressive,\u201d Dr Horner said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot fainter than what was expected,\u201d Dr Hill said. \u201cI\u2019ll be checking in on Twitter and online, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can follow the comet on NASA\u2019s Comet Siding Spring page<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>.
\nRead the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Belinda Smith, The Conversation Astronomers world-wide are gearing up for what NASA calls a \u201conce in a lifetime\u201d event: the Comet Siding Spring will swing past Mars on its maiden voyage through the solar system in the early hours next Monday (AEDT), and thanks to a fleet of spacecraft and rovers on and around […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":7885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[118],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1575"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7886,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions\/7886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}