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NASA / JPL
This NASA diagram shows the location and estimated orbit of comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring), discovered on Jan. 3, 2013, by astronomer Robert McNaught.
By Joe Rao
Space.com
A newfound comet is apparently on course to have an exceedingly close call with the planet Mars in October 2014, and there is a chance — albeit small — that the comet may even collide with the Red Planet.
The new comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) was discovered Jan. 3 by the Scottish-Australian astronomer Robert H. McNaught, a prolific observer of both comets and asteroids who has 74 comet discoveries to his name.
McNaught is a participant in the Siding Spring Survey a program that hunts down asteroids that might closely approach the Earth. He discovered the new comet using the 0.5-meter Uppsala Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory, New South Wales, Australia.
Pre-discovery images of the comet from Dec. 8, 2012 by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona were quickly found. Because the comet was discovered as part of its survey for asteroids, it bears the name of the observatory, Siding Spring. Officially it is cataloged as C/2013 A1.
When it was discovered, Comet Siding Spring was 669 million miles (1.07 billion kilometers) from the sun. Based on its orbital eccentricity, it is apparently a new or "virgin" comet, traveling in a parabolic orbit and making its very first visit to the vicinity of the sun. It is expected to pass closest to the sun (called perihelion) on Oct. 25, 2014 at a distance of 130 million miles (209 million km).
But, less than a week earlier, on Oct. 19, 2014, the comet — whose nucleus is estimated to be anywhere from 5 to 30 miles (8 to 50 km) in diameter — is projected to cross the orbit of Mars and pass very close to that planet. Preliminary calculations suggest that nominally at closest approach, Comet Siding Spring will come to within 63,000 miles (101,000 km) of Mars.
However, because the comet is currently very far out in space and has been under scrutiny for less than three months, the circumstances of its orbit will likely need to be refined in the coming weeks and months. As such, the comet's approach to Mars might ultimately end up being farther or closer than what current predictions suggest. In fact, last Wednesday observations made by Leonid Elenin, a reputable Russian astronomer who works at the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, suggested that the comet could pass even closer — just 25,700 miles (41,300 km) from the center of Mars.
According to Elenin: "On the 19th October 2014, the comet might reach apparent magnitude of -8 to -8.5, as seen from Mars!" (This would make the comet 15 to 25 times brighter than Venus). "Perhaps it will be possible to acquire high-resolution images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)," he added.
Then there is also the small possibility that the comet could collide with Mars.
Moving at 35 miles (56 km) per second, such a collision could create an impact crater on Mars up to 10 times the diameter of the comet's nucleus and up to 1.25 miles (2 km) deep, with an energy equivalent up to of 2 x 10^10 megatons!
Most readers will recall Comet Shoemaker-Levy's plunge into Jupiter in July 1994 that left dark telltale scars on Jupiter’s cloud tops for many months thereafter.
Collision or not, Comet Siding Spring will definitely come extremely close to Mars less than 20 months from now. Incredibly, this will actually be the second close shave of Mars by a passing comet within a time span of just over a year.
On Oct. 1 of this year, the much awaited Comet ISON is due to pass 6.5 million miles (10.5 million km) from Mars on its way toward a grazing encounter with the sun in November. That rendezvous is close enough in its own right to be categorized as exceptional and yet, Siding Spring will approach about 100 times closer.
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, N.Y. This article was first published on Space.com.
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I'm just curious, if it passes close enough to Mars, will the red planet's gravity affect the trajectory of the comet? If it does, what would be the comet's new course?
We probably won't know until it actually passes Mars. There are just too many variables to make an accurate prediction.
What is the Comet's exact orbit?
What is the Comet's exact mass?
Heck, what is Mars' exact mass and how is it distributed?
It should, yes, but they wouldn't be able to calculate it until they know better how close its was going to get. Hopefully it won't shoot off anywhere important.
Mars' exact mass is known by measuring its satellites' orbits with high precision.
Mass distribution doesn't matter for Newtonian gravity.
Comet's exact mass is small enough to not matter.
The gravity of Mars definitely will affect the trajectory of the comet. The question is how much and in what way?
This is another reason why we might want to intercept this comet before it reaches Mars. - RC
Two other potential factors:
Is there a possibility that the comet might collide with either Martian moon, Demos or Phobos?
Could a near-miss be close enough to graze the Martian atmosphere, causing a braking effect?
Either one of those things could drastically alter the orbit, and potentially shatter the comet into multiple fragments. We won't know for sure until we have a more accurate measurement of the orbit.
Darn, A collision would have been way cool, and we could learn alot without being in danger ourselves. But it looks very unlikely. Oh well.
Of course the main problen is fireworks are supposed to occur on July 4th
Regarding Shoemaker-Levy comet, an amazing fact is that the comet was captured by Jupiter and was orbiting it for a while, intil its orbit was disrupted by one of the moons, probably. This is why the collision was an expected event.
Couple of comets in the hood that make for exciting viewing.
I wonder is there's any possibility of observation from the Curiousity rover?
If they can get Curiousitys' computers working and keep them working,, maybe they can.
Think of the debris field created from a crater 50-300 miles wide and 1.25 miles deep. I would imagine much of that would reach earth.
i hope it does collide with mars and is a water bearing comet so that it can create a stronger atmosphere and maybe alter the planet enough to terraform. i personally am sick of being here and would love the change of scenery/inhabitants. sorry to say but earth people are getting stupid and i no longer want to participate in furthering this planet.
we're happy to see you go. bon voyage and all that. so go on, shove off now.
thanks for proving my point.
HERE IS WHAT IS 'DOWN' WITH THE NEW COMET AND POTENTIAL MARS COLLISION
They told you what is "up" with the new comet (C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring)) and a potentially Mars collision, so now I want to tell everyone what is potentially 'down' with the new comet and a potential Mars collision. There are potentially 1448.4 Clovis Comets inside this new C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) comet, and approximately 1.448 BILLION Tunguska comets inside this new comet which threatens Earth as well. If this huge 30 mile wide comet deflects off of Mars or one of the moons of Mars, it could potentially send a massive debris field hurtling in the direction of Earth which could potentially extinguish all complex life here on Earth a few months later. I personally DO NOT think that we (as a (supposedly) emerging intelligent race) should rest until we have improved the odds of our future survival here on Earth in light of this. We (as a world) are going to have one chance to do this within the next 5 months, before we are forever condemned to accepting "pot luck" on this matter. I personally think our international community should assemble and launch several Deep Space Ballistic Missiles (DSBMs) armed with MIRV nuclear warheads to intercept and deflect this rogue comet before it potentially hits Mars, but unfortunately I do not hear any seconding opinions among the scientific community in the public domain so far. People, every single day, hour, minute and second counts if we are going to successfully do this as an emerging (intelligent?) world. The cost is well within our combined economic capability as a world, so why leave our combined future here on this precious planet to sheer chance? Please listen before it is too late for our emerging (intelligent?) species, everyone! This is my final appeal on this matter. ~ Rick Carter
Oops, I made a slight error on one of my calculations. There are actually 1000 Clovis Comets inside of this C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) comet, and 1.448 BILLION Tunguska comets inside of it as well. Sorry for the error. - RC
(There actually could be as many as 1728 Clovis Comets inside of this C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) comet, depending upon whose figures you use for the Clovis Comet, which is estimated to have been somewhere between 2.5 miles and 3 miles wide.) - RC
We keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere while the climate heats up and this is many many more times likely to cause our demise than any comet or asteroid. So far we've done next to nothing about this known threat to our existence so what makes you think there is any will to do something about some minuscule chance of being hit by a comet?
I know, and I totally agree with you, "exred". I have also been warning everyone about these ET designed and installed terminal religious "End Time" belief systems for over 13 years now, but sadly to little or no avail, especially since I have been totally discredited every step of the way by the U.S. government (military and civilian, including the Obama administration), which steadfastly denies any knowledge of ET activity around our world. I personally lived at Wright Patterson Air Force base from 1951 to 1953, while my grandfather (Colonel Charles Faulkner Carter) was second in command there, and he was personally involved in the background investigation into the Roswell Incident of 1947. These ETs were reconning our post WWII nuclear facilities in the western and southwestern United States back in 1947, as part of a baseline study into our emerging WMD capability, because WMDs have a very key role to play in the future success of the programmed Christian Apocalypse (or World War III). They were particularly interested in the Roswell, N.M. area because the 509th bomber group was based at Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF), and back then they were the only bomber group in the entire world authorized to carry nuclear weapons.These same ETs overflew Washington DC for several weeks in 1952, in order to demand the return of these Roswell crash remains. They chose the middle of the Korean War as the most opportune time to do this, since we had our hands full militarily with the Soviets, the Red Chinese, and the North Koreans. Please understand that our emerging human world has been under covert biocybernetic warfare attack for thousands of years now, primarily in the form of these ET designed and installed terminal religious "End Time" belief systems known as the Abrahamic religions. All three of these program "End Time" religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are key components of a larger PWMD, or Program Weapon of Mass Destruction, designed to eventually crash and explode our emerging human world in a final programmed cataclysm of global warfare fueled with WMDs, known as the Christian Apocalypse or World War III. These ETs repeatedly masqueraded as Divinity toward mankind in the process of doing this, because they are secretly trying to create an eminent domain pretext for outside military intervention into our emerging human world, under the guise of the returning Christ or Messiah (or Mahdi, whichever the case may be). This ET conspiracy in turn relies upon their (now) eminent domain rights of military intervention in our sector of the Milky Way galaxy. These offensive totalitarian ETs were forced to take this covert approach at territorial conquest in our sector of the Milky Way galaxy, because there are Free Galaxy powers which reside elsewhere in our Milky Way galaxy, who currently stand in the way of overt military conquest on a stellar level. The real "Gospel" or "Good News" is that mankind potentially has countless millions (even billions) of years of growth, development and expansion ahead of them, so long as they don't fall for these program "End Time" religions known as the Abrahamic religions. - Rick Carter
(I am former U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret), 6th Group (Psyops) & 5th Group, top "Go Team" Ft. Bragg, N.C., ETS from active duty 1972. Please know ahead of time that I would not lie about any of this! BTW, these same ETs are also highly suspect in covertly orchestrating the 9/11 attacks on our country, too.)
Ahem. Blasting the comet with nukes will convert 1 comet into hundreds, perhaps thousands of comet fragments - smaller, yes, but according to his own figures, still big enough to cause major damage, should any of them strike Earth. More importantly, these thousands of new comet fragments would spread out in an expanding plume, greatly increasing the risk of a collision with Earth. In other words, it could cause exactly what Carter wants to prevent!
As for those ET conspiracy theories - highly entertaining, in a Hollywood thriller sort of way, but not at all realistic. Make-believe is not reality, no matter how exciting it might be.
The scoop on the Mars Comet C2013 A1 is that the Russians have it passing within 25,000 miles. But another lab which combined the results from Russia and JPL labs has it at ZERO miles.
The truth is that if it hits it would be the event of the EON as it would affect future Mars exploration (it would be covered with 10 feet of dust everywhere and not very 'explorable' with any kind of ground craft) and the fallout from space launched Martian meteors could make the inner planets a hostile place for thousands of years.
That's what happens when you throw out millions of rocks blasted out by 20 billion megatons of explosive force in ALL directions.
The Sun would see to it that we get our share and it may not be pretty at times given that NASA has focused on the wrong things--exploring a dead planet--instead of 'defense'.
So how's that defensive strategy going NASA?
Hope it impacts Mars, thickens the atmospheric density, subliminates the CO2 and water ice at the poles, causes volcanic vents to open with an outpouring of magma.
It seems that it's been getting fairly active out there in recent months so I wonder how long until we have something of significant size heading straight for out little planet?