Watch the video above: Animation of Comet Siding Spring’s close-encounter with Mars
TORONTO – Astronomers around the world are keeping an eye on the red planet this weekend in anticipation of one of the closest planetary passes of a comet ever observed.
On Sunday, Comet Siding Spring — officially known as Comet C/2013 A1 — will pass just 139,500 km from the surface of Mars.
READ MORE: 5 interesting things about Comet Siding Spring’s close encounter with Mars
That’s about a third of the distance between Earth and the moon.
After Robert McNaught discovered the comet using a telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia in 2013, initial calculations suggested the comet would slam into the red planet. Further calculations refined the comet’s path to its current orbit.
NASA has prepared its fleet of spacecraft for the flyby by manoeuvring spacecrafts to safer orbits.
However, the close encounter allows scientists to gather more information on the comet using rovers on the planet’s surface as well as the three satellites currently in orbit — the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey and the newly-inserted Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN). NASA is anticipating using MAVEN — whose sole mission is to study the Martian atmosphere — to study the effects of the close flyby in depth.
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So far the comet isn’t putting on a show for observers here on Earth: it’s still quite faint. It’s also not visible from the Northern Hemisphere.
You can watch the flyby live on The Virtual Telescope Project or Slooh.
READ MORE: MAVEN spacecraft safely in orbit around Mars
In 1994, several pieces of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into Jupiter. It’s believed that it broke apart after a close encounter with the giant planet in 1992 — possibly coming within 113,000 km of Jupiter’s centre. But that was never observed.
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