NASA Snaps Shot of Mars-Bound Comet

coondoggie (973519) writes "NASA today released images of a comet that will make a pass within 84,000 miles of Mars — less than half the distance between Earth and the moon. NASA said the Hubble Space Telescope captured the image of comet C/2013 A1, also called Siding Spring, at a distance of 353 million miles from Earth. Hubble can't see Siding Spring's icy nucleus because of its minuscule size. The nucleus is surrounded by a glowing dust cloud that measures roughly 12,000 miles across, NASA said."

Siding Spring -- meaning

[brindafella]

That name, Siding Spring, comes from the name of Siding Spring Observatory [anu.edu.au], the most significant optical observatory in Australia, operated by the Australian National University. The mountain is part of the Warrumbungle Range, in the state of New South Wales, near the town Coonabarabran [wikipedia.org]. It is the site of the Anglo-Australian Telescope [wikipedia.org], among others. Also see Google maps [google.com.au] at 31.273038S 149.066804E.