Comet C 2013 A1 Siding Spring
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.
Comet c 2013 a1 siding spring. 20 with the comet at r 1 40 au using the hall 1 1 m telescope at lowell observatory. 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. Comet siding spring is.
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. Mcnaught reported the discovery of an apparently asteroidal object on ccd images obtained with the 0 5 m uppsala schmidt telescope on jan. Comet siding spring c 2013 a1 is racing toward mars for a close encounter on october 19 2014. Mcnaught at siding spring observatory using the 0 5 meter 20 in uppsala southern schmidt telescope.
Close comet flyby threw mars magnetic field into chaos. Haser 1 2 x 10 28 molecules s with an uncertainty of. C 2013 a1 siding spring is an oort cloud comet discovered on 3 january 2013 by robert h. These observations were acquired only about 8 hr after the comet s closest approach to mars and yield the following mean production rates.
3 discovery observations tabulated below. Comet c 2013 a1 siding spring position and finder charts. After posting at the minor planet center s neocp webpage mcnaught. 19 2014 during the comet s close flyby of mars and the spacecraft.
These images were taken of comet c 2013 a1 siding spring by nasa s mars reconnaissance orbiter on oct. 19 comet c 2013 a1 comet siding spring will pass within about 87 000 miles 139 500 km of mars. Comet c 2013 a1 siding spring mcnaught r.