A special bulletin for readers of the Obsequious News
Service! Sunday, October 19, 2014, Comet
Siding Spring (named for the Australian Observatory at which it was first seen)
will have a close encounter with our neighbor planet Mars.
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| Comet Siding Spring |
The comet will pass within 87,000 miles of the Red Planet,
(I don’t have to go over that again, do I? Do we all remember from the blog
post of April 7, 2014, “Extra! Mars Attacks!” why the planet is named Mars?)
just one-third the distance between the Earth and Moon.
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| Comet as seen from Mars |
In addition to the close encounter, this occurrence is
remarkable because the comet is from the Ort Cloud: Which is a long, long,
way. The Ort Cloud is that ring of rocks
and ice balls out beyond Neptune where that erstwhile planet Pluto
resides. NASA suggests that Siding
Spring was nudged out of its usual orbit by a passing star some million years
ago (talk about a road trip) on a trajectory toward the sun.
Maybe… or could it just be a bit of revenge?
While several
satellites and the Mars bound rovers are keyed up to take pictures as the
intruder passes, there is no indication that we will be able to see the comet
from Earth. That can only mean one thing…
STEALTH TECHNOLOGY!
Keep your eyes open and report anything you don’t see to authorities.
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