A possible impact of a comet with Mars in 2014

New update on JPL: ssd.jpl.nasa.gov...

JPL Mars Close Approach Data
Nominal: 0.000793513 AU
Max: 0.002267165 AU

Still a very small chance of collision, but the nominal distance seems to be settling at about 0.0008 AU.

I made a graphic that displays the maximum, nominal and minimum distances, relative to each other and Mars (which here appears extra large), according to the latest data.



This places Mars roughly in the middle of the uncertainty region between the nominal and the minimum distances. I hope this is correct.

Just noticed that recent observations of C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) have given us an updated estimate:

New observations of comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) have allowed NASA's Near-Earth Object Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. to further refine the comet's orbit.

Based on data through April 7, 2013, the latest orbital plot places the comet's closest approach to Mars slightly closer than previous estimates, at about 68,000 miles (110,000 kilometers).

At the same time, the new data set now significantly reduces the probability the comet will impact the Red Planet, from about 1 in 8,000 to about 1 in 120,000.

Source: spacedaily.com

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by openminded2011

 

You have to wonder the following: could an impact of THAT magnitude affect the orbit of Mars,

No. It's sort of like a fly vs. 18 wheeler.

or could we get hit with any large ejecta

That's possible, but it wouldn't get to us for a very long time.

Heey,
what kind of comfort is that; "it wouldn't get to us for a very long time"?
See that thing that went down near Cheylabinsk? They coulnd't predict the massive boom that caused pretty severe human and structural harm. At least they didn't bother to send out a warning in time.
What if there is numerous of those, every day for about half a year? Striking metropolitan areas, oil refineries, nuclear power plants? A big sucker just outside the European west coast?

Your talk about "awereness" is spot on. If these dangers don't reach the political agendas we might end up in real world of hurt.
Whatever those measures could possibly be...?

reply to post by Raud


When he said: "Would not get to us for a very long time." he didn't mean weeks, months, or even a few years.

Try anything from hundreds of thousands of years to millions of years.

Any thing blown into orbit by an impact on Mars doesn't make a bee line for Earth. They'll fall in towards the sun but not at a straight line, more like a spiraling orbit. Mars and Earth have different inclinations to the solar plane. Chances are much greater that anything like that would end up crossing Earth's orbit when our planet isn't there.

However, many, many eyes will be on this event, and if an impact does result, you can rest assured that many, many eyes will also be searching the skies in that area to see if anything was blown out and is now moving.

reply to post by eriktheawful


Aight, thank you for your useful reply.

What is the worst case scenario? When the meteor impacts, can't there be millions of larger and smaller debris scattered around with at least a few hundred of them on collision course with earth with a much shorter ETA?

Originally posted by Raud
See that thing that went down near Cheylabinsk? They coulnd't predict the massive boom that caused pretty severe human and structural harm. At least they didn't bother to send out a warning in time.

Not true that a shock-wave like the one caused by the Cheylabinsk mega-bolide was not predictable. Yes, people were not expecting the shock-wave, but had people been educated, virtually all injury could have been avoided.

A bit like when a toddler first sees a flame - the first instinct is curiosity, and the toddler will inevitably reach out to touch it and burn his or her hand. Next time the toddler sees a flame he/she knows not to try and touch it.

Mega-bolides like the Cheylabinsk event are so rare that people and authorities would not have known that looking out of a window was potentially dangerous, but I'm sure if a similar event occurred over the region now, people would know not to look out of windows since they would be expecting a shock-wave.

Originally posted by Raud
What if there is numerous of those, every day for about half a year? Striking metropolitan areas, oil refineries, nuclear power plants? A big sucker just outside the European west coast?

It simply does not work like that. Mars is a very, very, very long way away, and the solar system is an extremely big place. Like eriktheawful said, any debris would take a long time to reach here, and because of the distance it's very unlikely that we would be bombarded by debris.

Originally posted by Raud
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

Aight, thank you for your useful reply.

What is the worst case scenario? When the meteor impacts, can't there be millions of larger and smaller debris scattered around with at least a few hundred of them on collision course with earth with a much shorter ETA?

As I said, this event is going to have a LOT of eyes on it. Anyone with a telescope and knows how to use it will be looking, especially if it ends up being an impact event.

If it is an impact event, everyone that has the equipment to monitor that area of space that it happened in, will be looking to see if they can catch any debris in space. They'll move against the back ground stars.

A lot of comet and asteroid hunters will be eager to be the first to report something and get credit for it. Everything that can be seen will then have their orbits tracked and observed.

Some of the debris will be way to small to see at that distance, but those tend to also be way too small to get all the way through our atmosphere and impact here.

We could have events like what happened in Russia happen again, but as FireballStorm said, a LOT more people are aware of the dangers of what can happen (IE see that flash and know you have a few minutes to get away from windows, etc).

However, we humans have short attention spans. Just look at how many of us live on the slopes or very near active volcanoes.

reply to post by eriktheawful


OK, I understand perfectly well, thank you

But say there is a cluster of about 350 or so "Cheylabinsk-class" objects coming towards earth, some of them a little smaller some of them about three or four times the Cheylabinsk object...
What are those thousands of observatories do about that? As far as I am concerned, we might very well be royally done for, at least some of us, if they impact highy important or dangerous areas.

Trying not to sound too panicky here, because I am really a pretty laid back guy for the record, but I really want to understand the mechanisms and magnitute, and of course, the possibilities (let alone worst case) of this theoretical event.

Just heightening my awareness

Originally posted by Raud
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

OK, I understand perfectly well, thank you

But say there is a cluster of about 350 or so "Cheylabinsk-class" objects coming towards earth, some of them a little smaller some of them about three or four times the Cheylabinsk object...
What are those thousands of observatories do about that? As far as I am concerned, we might very well be royally done for, at least some of us, if they impact highy important or dangerous areas.

Trying not to sound too panicky here, because I am really a pretty laid back guy for the record, but I really want to understand the mechanisms and magnitute, and of course, the possibilities (let alone worst case) of this theoretical event.

Just heightening my awareness

IF (and I really must stress that word) if your example were true, all those objects would be observed and orbits tracked. What the observatories can do is: tell us where they will hit.

While we might not be able to DO anything about keeping them from hitting, we can warn people of where they will hit or go over head.

The one in Russia was without any warning at all, and as others have posted on here, people didn't know any better (IE standing next to windows that blew out)

Originally posted by eriktheawful
IF (and I really must stress that word) if your example were true, all those objects would be observed and orbits tracked. What the observatories can do is: tell us where they will hit.

While we might not be able to DO anything about keeping them from hitting, we can warn people of where they will hit or go over head.

The one in Russia was without any warning at all, and as others have posted on here, people didn't know any better (IE standing next to windows that blew out)

Alright, so there is still a potential risk. Good to know that I was not totally off this time. I'll keep watching the skies.
The observatories can't do nothing besides tell us exactly how bad it is going to be, and where. Rough patch if it goes for the shanty towns outside Rio de Janeiro causing a pretty chaotic evacuation... Or directly onto Mexico City. Tokyo.
We'll see, I guess

About that one in Russia, I don't think that I would have thought about avoiding windows myself either. My point is that local authorities either did not know about the object entering their part of the sky, or/and did not know about how much energy it was going to bring along. Or they just didn't care.
None of the above is a very good excuse/comfort though.

Originally posted by FireballStorm
Just noticed that recent observations of C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) have given us an updated estimate:

New observations of comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) have allowed NASA's Near-Earth Object Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. to further refine the comet's orbit.

Based on data through April 7, 2013, the latest orbital plot places the comet's closest approach to Mars slightly closer than previous estimates, at about 68,000 miles (110,000 kilometers).

At the same time, the new data set now significantly reduces the probability the comet will impact the Red Planet, from about 1 in 8,000 to about 1 in 120,000.

Source: spacedaily.com

Good. That about knocks out the chances it will hit Mars. The one and only thing I was concerned about were the Rovers, and if this would have hurt their mission or dusted over their cameras. Thanks for the update.

reply to post by FireballStorm


Man, I don't understand how your post passed me by.
This greatly re-writes my risk calcualtions. Scaling it down to an "yellow" level of doomsdayness.

Though the earth is quite small, and the universe is rather wide, I can't help but think how lucky we are, and how lucky we have been the last millenia. Comets pass us by on a regular basis but never hit. Sometimes inbetween us and our moon and still just barely missing. As if to say "we have our eyes on your little blue marble. You better check yourself down there and be grateful or we're gonna WHAM! Just like that!"

reply to post by Raud


Yes, with there being so much space, it's easy for objects to miss each other. Until you take the time to ponder it, it can seem like this is not the case. I think people often forget that space "operates" in 3-d, giving even more opportunity for objects to spread out and be "diluted". It's actually very hard to get your head around just how much space there is out there, even in our solar system alone.

For example, think about two small boats, one leaving the USA and heading for the UK, and the other doing the opposite. Both boats navigating by compass alone (no sat-navs). The chances of them even seeing each other at the half-way point are tiny - let alone them colliding. We are just talking 2-d here too! Now with space, the distances involved are many many times those in my example.

It's also true that Earth (or rather "Earth's atmosphere") gets hit by objects every day, but the vast majority are tiny. Much of this debris is from comets, and some are fragments of asteroids. But there is also a percentage that will have come from collisions between objects/planets in space - collisions that have been occurring for billions of years, especially when the solar-system was young and there was much more debris/objects flying around.

Over billions of years much of this debris has either been sucked up by the Sun's gravity or has been swept up by the the planets, especially the gas-giants like Jupiter and Saturn, but the odd bit still remains (mostly concentrated in the Oort cloud, the Kuiper belt, and the asteroid-belt), and we can see this debris entering the atmosphere on any given night when it's clear. Much of it will have been orbiting the Sun, and missing us for hundreds/thousands/millions of years before it finally ends up hitting.

Probably my favorite past time is to go out on a clear night to observe this debris hitting and just ponder how amazing it all is!

Bumping this thread up, as the comet's encounter with Mars is very soon, to occur on 19 October 2014 at 18:33 UTC. It will not impact Mars, but the encounter will still be the closest approach of a comet next to a planet in modern astronomy (not counting that famous comet that impacted Jupiter).

Amateur astronomer Damian Peach has produced this amazing photo of C/2013 A1 Siding Spring next to NGC 1316 galaxy, from July 28th:



The comet is seen here having a green colour and two tails.

And here it is again by Damian Peach on August 2nd, ing galaxy NGC 1291:



NASA Preps for Nail-biting Comet Flyby of Mars

As Comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring inches closer to the Red Planet, NASA’s taking steps to protect its fleet of orbiting Mars spacecraft. On October 19, the comet’s icy nucleus will miss the planet by just 82,000 miles (132,000 km). That’s 17 times closer than the closest recorded Earth-approaching comet, Lexell’s Comet in 1770.

a reply to: wildespace

How does 109,200 km translate into might hit mars???

Your math is a little scary if an almost is 109,000 km away, that's a very large discrepancy in the numbers.

originally posted by: Hijinx
a reply to: wildespace

How does 109,200 km translate into might hit mars???

Your math is a little scary if an almost is 109,000 km away, that's a very large discrepancy in the numbers.

This is an old thread, and it has been established quite a while ago that the comet will not hit Mars. But rather than create a whole new thread just to post a few pictures and updates, I've decided to continue in this thread. It will allow to track how our understanding of the comet evolved with time, and what events surrounding it are occuring.

But just to clarify, 109,200 km was the nominal close approach distance, with a large area of uncertainty. That meant that there was a chance that the comet might Mars. But as astronomers made more and more observations of the comet's trajectory, they were able to pin it down with better and better certainty, and the danger of impact passed.