Small nucleus
Siding Spring’s voyage through its journey to Oort Cloud — a collection of comets outside that of Neptune that spans thousands of units in astronomymade it pristine when it appeared beside Mars. Modern rocket technology isn’t capable of chasing these comets that are far away, therefore the fact that Siding Spring come so close to Mars gave us the first time to see a close-up image of the nucleus of the comet, as seen of NASA’s Mars fleet.Comet’s Mars.
Actually, considering our sun’s system has been in existence since 4.5 billion years in the past, it is likely that a Kuiper Belt comet of that size could have probably vanished in the past due to the sun’s warmth and pressure on the particles, Lisse said.
Another Mars orbiter NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft (the name is a contraction of Mars Atmosphere as well as Volatile Evolution Mission), was launched on the planet in October of 2014 and was able monitor the effects of Comet Siding Spring on Mars its atmosphere. In the meantime it was also able to observe the Curiosity and Opportunity Rovers took photos of the comet’s surface. Martian surface. This was the first time that these kinds of photos were captured on another planet.
Solar system history
There’s a lot of disagreement over the possibility that water and other living elements arrived on Earth through comets. But Siding Spring’s close-approach may have been a good example of what was commonplace during the early solar system — the repeated close shaves, and even hits from asteroids and comets that in long time provided elements to Earth and other planets according to him, he said.Lisse was awed by the capability of NASA and the European Space Agency and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to evaluate the dust threat of the comet and tailor the observations of spacecrafts accordingly for example the placement of Mars within the orbit of the spacecraft the comet at the closest phase.
The amateur astronomers played key part in the observations. In reality, it was an amateur group of skywatchers located in South Africa that first alerted the astronomical community Siding Spring had passed by Mars in good condition, Lisse said.Comet’s Mars,Lisse looks forward to a partnership between professional and amateurs throughout 2017 and 2018 in the years when Comet 46P/Wirtanen (the first target of Rosetta) will pass fairly closer to Earth and shine at a magnitude of 3 on the scale of brightness used by Astronomers. To give an example, the dimmer night sky object visible to the naked eye is magnitude of 6. Numerous other bright comets could also be expected like 2P/Encke or 41P TGK.
