When comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) made its historic encounter with planet Mars in October 2014, passing roughly 140 000 km (87 00 miles) from its surface, it wreaked havoc on the magnetic environment around Mars. The effect, temporary but profound, was measured…
Two NASA and one European spacecraft that obtained the first up-close observations of a comet flyby of Mars on October 19, 2014 have gathered new information about the basic properties of the comet’s nucleus and directly detected the effects on the Martian atmosph
Comet Siding Spring hurtled past Mars at about 56 km/s only 139 000 km away from its surface at 18:27 UTC on October 19, 2014. The period when dust from the comet was most likely to reach Mars and the orbits of spacecraft around Mars peaked about 100 minutes later. Acco
Comet Siding Spring will make its historic approach to Mars around 18:27 UTC on Sunday, October 19, 2014, and pass within 139 500 km (88 000 miles) away from planet's surface. That is less than half the distance between Earth and its moon and less than one-tenth
C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) is scheduled for a very close flyby at only about 139 500 km (88 000 miles) away from the surface of Mars on October 19, 2014 around 18:27 UTC. That is less than half the distance between Earth and its moon and less than one-tenth the distance
India's first interplanetary mission to planet Mars, Mars Orbiter Mission, arrived in the Martian orbit on September 24, 2014 making India the first nation to enter the Mars's orbit in it’s first attempt and the first Asian nation to reach the Red planet.I
At 02:24 UTC today NASA's MAVEN spacecraft reached planet Mars and entered its orbit. MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars. It is expected to begin its primary mission in a
It's a known fact that planets have atmospheres, but the same can't be said for comets. The atmosphere of a comet, called its "coma," is made of gas and dust that spew out of the sun-warmed nucleus and it's typically wider than Jupiter.La
As Comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring heads toward a close flyby of Mars on October 19, 2014, NASA and ESA are both taking steps to protect their Mars orbiters, while still preserving opportunities to gather valuable scientific data. Six days after p
In late May, NASA's Swift satellite imaged comet Siding Spring, which will brush astonishingly close to Mars on October 19, 2014. These optical and ultraviolet observations are the first to reveal how rapidly the comet is producing water and allow astronomers to
