Comet To Make Close Call With Mars 44
sciencehabit writes In mid-October, a comet sweeping through our inner solar system for the first time will pass near Mars—so close, in fact, that if it were buzzing Earth at the same distance it would fly by well inside our moon's orbit. While material spewing from the icy visitor probably won't trigger the colossal meteor showers on the Red Planet that some scientists predicted, dust and water vapor may still slam into Mars, briefly heating up its atmosphere and threatening orbiting spacecraft. However it affects the planet, the comet should give scientists their closest view yet of a near-pristine visitor from the outer edges of our solar system.
Too bad this didn't happen in 50 years (Score:5, Interesting)
If this happened (optimistically) 50 years from now, we'd be able to deflect the comet to HIT mars, thus delivering a lot of water and warming things up a bit. (Only, I'm afraid, a little bit of terraforming, it would probably take thousands of such comet strikes to make the planet "habitable"). Or we could make it hit one of the moons and, if done very carefully, could deliver said water to possible Mars Moon colonists (but they'd have to find a way to keep the resulting fragments from ruining near-Mars space for space travels).
More realistically, I wonder if NASA (and the ESA) have plans to move their spacecraft for best viewing. If they're worried about damage, they could have them be on the other side of the planet when it makes its closest approach. If there are any spacecraft that are on their "last legs" (low propellent, malfunctioning equipment, no more spare reaction wheels), perhaps they could even make a very risky close approach!
I expect there will be some great images! (If the HiRes camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter can take 1m resolutions of Mars from orbit, it surely will be able to take great pictures of a comet only a few tens of thousands of kilometers away).