Comet Siding Spring Mars Rover

Nasa s extensive fleet of science assets particularly those orbiting and roving mars have front row seats to image and study a once in a lifetime comet flyby on sunday oct.

Comet siding spring mars rover.

Just weeks before the historic encounter of comet c 2013 a1 siding spring with mars in october 2014 nasa s mars atmosphere and volatile evolution maven spacecraft entered orbit around the red planet. Several spacecraft from nasa europe and india were expected to track the comet s approach from their positions in orbit. Comet siding spring mars flyby on sunday oct. Nasa s curiosity rover spends most of its time staring at the ground but like humans it looks up once in a while too.

As reported earlier nasa ground controllers pointed the rover s mast camera. Sorry but there has been an error while loading the model. Comet siding spring s path through the sky as seen by mars curiosity rover and its orbital diagram. Follow comet siding spring at marscomet on october 19 comet siding spring will pass within 88 000 miles of mars just one third of the distance from the e.

You need a desktop computer with. 19 comet c 2013 a1 also known as comet siding spring will pass within about 87 000 miles 139 500 kilometers of the red planet less than half the distance between earth and our moon and less than one tenth the distance of any known comet flyby of earth. Mars curiosity rover views comet siding spring this animation and still image of comet c 2013 a1 siding spring were taken by the mast camera mastcam on nasa s curiosity mars rover as the comet passed near the red planet on oct.