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Comet C/2013 A1 May Hit Mars In 2014

Posted by samzenpus on from the big-boom dept.

astroengine writes "According to preliminary orbital prediction models, comet C/2013 A1 will buzz Mars on Oct. 19, 2014. C/2013 A1 was discovered by ace comet-hunter Robert McNaught at the Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia, on Jan. 3. When the discovery was made, astronomers at the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona looked back over their observations to find "prerecovery" images of the comet dating back to Dec. 8, 2012. These observations placed the orbital trajectory of comet C/2013 A1 through Mars orbit on Oct. 19, 2014. Due to uncertainties in the observations — the comet has only been observed for 74 days (so far), so it's difficult for astronomers to forecast the comet's precise location in 20 months time — comet C/2013 A1 may fly past at a very safe distance of 0.008 AU (650,000 miles). But to the other extreme, its orbital pass could put Mars directly in its path."

102 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. OH NO! DUCK CURIOSITY!! by jrmcc · · Score: 4, Funny

    Keep your head down.

    1. Re:OH NO! DUCK CURIOSITY!! by cod3r_ · · Score: 4, Funny

      The one spot it ends up landing happens to be on the multi million dollar mars rover. That would be something.

    2. Re:OH NO! DUCK CURIOSITY!! by jargonburn · · Score: 2

      Indeed! It would be proof! Of something. Not sure what, exactly. I'll have to think that one over.

    3. Re:OH NO! DUCK CURIOSITY!! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The one spot it ends up landing happens to be on the multi million dollar mars rover. That would be something.

      Well, I hope it won't, because if it hits, it might make for some really interesting changes in weather for the (surviving) rover to observe:

      With the current estimate of the absolute magnitude of the nucleus M2 = 10.3, which might indicate the diameter of over 50 km, the energy of impact might reach the equivalent of staggering 2×10 megatonnes! This kind of event can leave a crater 500 km across and 2 km deep. (link)

      But it's quite sure to say that witnessing such impact is just wishful thinking.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    4. Re:OH NO! DUCK CURIOSITY!! by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 2

      If it is something that big and it hits. I wonder if would provide enough energy to melt the polar caps and send water around the planet.

      --
      -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
    5. Re:OH NO! DUCK CURIOSITY!! by RivenAleem · · Score: 4, Funny

      In soviet Mars, comet kill Curiosity!

    6. Re:OH NO! DUCK CURIOSITY!! by RaceProUK · · Score: 2

      The one spot it ends up landing happens to be on the multi million dollar mars rover. That would be something.

      I just got this mental image of God being complemented on an awesome trick shot :)

      --
      No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
    7. Re:OH NO! DUCK CURIOSITY!! by quenda · · Score: 1

      If it is something that big and it hits. I wonder if would provide enough energy to melt the polar caps and send water around the planet.

      Why wonder? It is the age of Wikipedia. The Mars polar caps are 2 x 1.6m cubic km, so latent heat of fusion alone is 10 to-power-of 24 (curse slashdot's inability to show exponential symbols) joules, or 250 million Mt TNT, by the back of my envelope.
      Above-linked article says 2x10 to-tpo 10 Mt, so 80 times the latent heat of fusion of the ice-caps. ... I'm waiting for it to sink in, but I don't think my brain can comprehend those numbers.

    8. Re:OH NO! DUCK CURIOSITY!! by eth1 · · Score: 2

      The one spot it ends up landing happens to be on the multi million dollar mars rover. That would be something.

      Well, I hope it won't, because if it hits, it might make for some really interesting changes in weather for the (surviving) rover to observe:

      With the current estimate of the absolute magnitude of the nucleus M2 = 10.3, which might indicate the diameter of over 50 km, the energy of impact might reach the equivalent of staggering 2×10 megatonnes! This kind of event can leave a crater 500 km across and 2 km deep. (link)

      But it's quite sure to say that witnessing such impact is just wishful thinking.

      Well, if it does hit Mars, you can bet we'll be sending another rover to check it out. We can call it "Morbid Curiosity."

    9. Re:OH NO! DUCK CURIOSITY!! by RaceProUK · · Score: 1

      Einstein said God doesn't shoot dice, but does he shoot pool?

      Maybe he does; never actually asked him.

      --
      No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
    10. Re:OH NO! DUCK CURIOSITY!! by RivenAleem · · Score: 2

      Oh come on, it's not called "The Red Planet" without good reason.

    11. Re:OH NO! DUCK CURIOSITY!! by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 1

      What about the composition of the comet itself? I can't find any information about it, but if it had a significant amount of water ice...

  2. Better him than me. by jcrb · · Score: 4, Funny

    Said the Earth.

    --
    -jon
    1. Re:Better him than me. by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      You must work in the same bureaucracy I do

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:Better him than me. by icebike · · Score: 1

      Said the Earth.

      A near miss of Mars could possibly put Earth at point blank range.

      If it passes close enough to Mars that C/2013 A1's orbit is affected, it could conceivably put it on a collusion course for earth, we would have very little time to react to that.

      It might be safer for all concerned if it did hit Mars.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    3. Re:Better him than me. by goodmanj · · Score: 3, Informative

      Absolutely impossible. It encounters Mars when it's closest to the sun: a basic principle of orbital mechanics is that applying a force at a given location changes the object's position at the *opposite* side of the orbit. So encountering Mars just makes the furthest part of its orbit (which is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay out beyond Pluto) a little closer or farther.

    4. Re:Better him than me. by icebike · · Score: 1

      Absolutely impossible. It encounters Mars when it's closest to the sun: a basic principle of orbital mechanics is that applying a force at a given location changes the object's position at the *opposite* side of the orbit. So encountering Mars just makes the furthest part of its orbit (which is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay out beyond Pluto) a little closer or farther.

      If you are talking about applying force to an object in orbit around the sun, that seems logical enough.

      Mars is not what C/2013A1 is orbiting, but all of a sudden there is this huge gravity well (Mars) in its path that wasn't there before.

      Is there any possible a close encounter to Mars that might cause C/2013A1 to act as if it were orbiting mars, (at least for half a rev duration of that single pass)? And if so, just how much can Mars deflect the orbit of C/2013A1 from what it might have been for centuries?

      Surely there must be some approach to mars that might be close enough to perturb the asteroid's orbit.
      For that matter, might not the recent pass by earth deflected C/2013A1 somewhat?

      An interesting article I saw about a year ago suggested that Earth Mood Sun combination is constantly deflecting small near earth objects in wild paths, which sometimes loop between earth and the moon, and sometimes give Earth additional minimoons, occasionally for decades.

      Disclaimer: I have No clue where Earth might be at that predicted time of the Mars encounter. (And I'm too lazy to look it up). ;-/

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    5. Re:Better him than me. by goodmanj · · Score: 1

      2. What I say is true. Go play this game a while and get back to me.

      https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/

      3. I'm aware of the counterintuitive stuff you can do with orbital slingshots. However, the maximum amount of velocity change you can get from a gravity assist by Mars is around 330 m/s (Niehoff, J. Spacecraft, 1966). To bring the side of the orbit opposite Mars from the Oort cloud down to Earth's orbit, you'll need to dump tens of thousands of m/s of orbital speed.

      http://www.gravityassist.com/IAF3-2/Ref.%203-140.pdf

    6. Re:Better him than me. by goodmanj · · Score: 1

      Mars's gravitational pull is the force I was talking about.

      The effect you're describing is a "gravity assist" or "slingshot" maneuver. It certainly would change the comet's orbit, but there's a limit that depends on the mass of the planet and how close you get to it -- and thus on the planet's size. For Mars, this limit is pretty small.

    7. Re:Better him than me. by mc6809e · · Score: 1

      Is there any possible a close encounter to Mars that might cause C/2013A1 to act as if it were orbiting mars, (at least for half a rev duration of that single pass)?

      A perfect glancing blow that tore the comet to pieces might leave some little bits in orbit. A few may even find themselves in orbit around the sun as new asteroids. Most of the comet would become vapor.

      Anything else leaves a big crater or deflects the comet a small amount on its way back out of the solar system.

    8. Re:Better him than me. by fatphil · · Score: 1

      > So encountering Mars just makes the furthest part of its orbit (which is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay out beyond Pluto) a little closer or farther.

      But not any other part of the orbit? So it will continue in the same orbit as before, but then at the very far end witll suddenly take a quick detour to the new perturbed position, and then dart back to its old orbit?

      Because that's what you have written, and it's clearly complete tosh.

      Any perturbation of the motion of the comet as it approaches mars will change *the entire orbit* of the commit, to a greater or lesser degree. Too great a change in the ecentricity, and the earth's orbit can clearly easily be crossed. It could even be turned into a sun-grazer, or emitted from the solar system entirely on a hyperbolic orbit. Please do some research into the insolvability of the three-body problem before making such absurd "absolute" claims.

      --
      Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
    9. Re:Better him than me. by RaceProUK · · Score: 1

      *brain asplodes from attempting to work out logic of parent*

      --
      No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
    10. Re:Better him than me. by Muad'Dave · · Score: 1

      The comet is already going pretty close to escape velocity for the Sun's gravity well, so if it is speed up much at all, definitely as it would if deflected to come within Earth's orbit, it would be flung out of the solar system.

      If it doesn't impact Mars and what you say is indeed true, let's start RIGHT NOW developing a nuclear-powered probe to rendezvous with/land on the comet and ride it out of the solar system. It's unfortunate that the comet is in a retrograde orbit since that means we'd have to expend a huge amount of energy to match its trajectory.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
    11. Re:Better him than me. by QuantumPion · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Is there any possible a close encounter to Mars that might cause C/2013A1 to act as if it were orbiting mars, (at least for half a rev duration of that single pass)? And if so, just how much can Mars deflect the orbit of C/2013A1 from what it might have been for centuries?

      It is not possible for an object orbiting the sun to become captured by the orbit of a planet, due to conservation of energy. The only way an object can be captured is by either using rockets or aerobraking. However aerobraking alone does not produce a stable orbit since its orbit would continually decay each time it passed through the atmosphere. In order to aerocapture you have to slow down through the atmosphere and then apply thrust at apoapsis to raise the periapsis out of the atmosphere.

    12. Re:Better him than me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Since the comet itself has minimal gravitational pull, any effort to send a probe to it, whether it was in a retrograde orbit or not, would require supplying the probe with the same velocity to match that of the comet. In that sense, if you wanted to just explore outside the solar system, you don't need any comet, because you would be expending the same energy anyways. In fact you probably would be spending more energy trying to match the comet's trajectory on a short time scale, possibly without the use of outer planets for slingshoting and limits on how many times you can use inner planets for slingshotting due to the time crunch. Since we are still a long way from actually using the materials on the comet for anything constructive on a robotic mission, the only thing you would gain by putting a probe with the comet would be to see what happens to comets when they get far from the Sun, which is probably not that interesting of a benefit for the costs involved.

    13. Re:Better him than me. by goodmanj · · Score: 1

      But not any other part of the orbit? So it will continue in the same orbit as before, but then at the very far end witll suddenly take a quick detour to the new perturbed position, and then dart back to its old orbit?

      Because that's what you have written, and it's clearly complete tosh.

      No, that's *your interpretation* of what I've written, and your interpretation is complete tosh. Of course the entire orbit changes, but it changes most on the side of the orbit opposite Mars. The current orbit only barely enters Mars's orbit, and comes nowhere near the Earth's: to make it cross Earth's orbit via encounter with Mars, you'd have to lower the far end of the ellipse from the Oort cloud down to Earth's orbit. That takes tens of km/s of velocity change. The maximum velocity change you can get from a gravitational encounter with Mars is about 0.3 km/s.

    14. Re:Better him than me. by fatphil · · Score: 1

      No, it is what you wrote. Or do you not understand what the word "just" means?

      --
      Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
    15. Re:Better him than me. by fatphil · · Score: 1

      It's simple newtonian physics, that you could teach a ten-year-old. If that gives you brain problems, then your brain already had problems.

      You cannot change a part of an orbit. If you change the orbit, you change the whole orbit to be a different orbit. (See GPP's follow up to me where he admits that, clearly in contradiction to his prior "[it] just makes [the single aspect change]" nonsense.)

      --
      Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
    16. Re:Better him than me. by RaceProUK · · Score: 1

      You do know goodmanj only described the apogee without making a single comment about the shape of the orbit? You see, 99.999999% of readers will know what he meant, but you have to show off the fact you know high-school maths to boost your ego to over-inflated levels. Hence the brain asplode.

      --
      No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
    17. Re:Better him than me. by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      a collusion course for earth

      It's all a plot by the people in Black Helicopters to steal our guns, teach us evolution, and interfere with our precious bodily fluids.

      I have a feeling that I've missed a conspiracy. But that'll be the CIA's brain projectors interfering with my memory. Again.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    18. Re:Better him than me. by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Is there any possible a close encounter to Mars that might cause C/2013A1 to act as if it were orbiting mars, (at least for half a rev duration of that single pass)?

      I get goodmanj's description of the orbital mechanics. I've not used the orbital mechanics simulator that he talks about, but I've used others and the effects are counter-intuitive, but as he describes. (And yes, I do get that the whole orbit changes, but that the largest changes are at the far end of the orbit.) One thing that you don't seem to appreciate is that this comet is going to be flying past Mars very rapidly, so the time during which the gravity of Mars has a significant effect on the comet is going to be relatively short. That considerably reduces the influence that Mars can have on the orbit.

      I don't have enough maths to prove that your concern is im-possible, but I'm confident that it's highly improbable.

      And if so, just how much can Mars deflect the orbit of C/2013A1 from what it might have been for centuries?

      The comet is on a hyperbolic orbit, as far as we can tell (eccentricity of orbit > 1). That means that it's on a one-time-only visit to the inner solar system. Wherever it has been orbiting for aeons, it probably had an encounter with some other body and acquired sufficient energy from the interaction to be put onto it's hyperbolic orbit. That also implies ... [SFX : grinding gears] that the unseen other body ... [SFX : more grinding] has lost energy in the encounter ... and has been projected outwards (conservation of momentum) from the interaction area ... and will eventually come barrelling in on a similar but elliptical orbit.

      goodmanj - can you check me on that? does it make sense?

      That's actually quite worrying a deduction. Of course, given 100,000 year Oort Cloud orbits, the second comet could be 50,000 years away. Or 5 years?

      I note that the uncertainty on the eccentricity that the JPL database gives is large enough the eccentricities of < 1 are plausible. Need more observation arc.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    19. Re:Better him than me. by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 1

      Kerbal Space Program isn't a highly accurate simulator (though it's very good for getting a feel for the actual mechanics). It only does two-body simulations as far as I know (hence the domain change between Kerbin and Mun for example). This of course makes sense since 3-body is unsolvable analytically, but it does mean that it's orbital projections won't account for the influence of multiple bodies on the trajectory until you get close enough for it to change which body it simulates against.

  3. That's one way to find water. by stewsters · · Score: 2

    I know where we can find water on Mars! We need to calculate that impact point once we get some more observations. We have until 2014 to drive our rovers to that point.

    1. Re:That's one way to find water. by FirephoxRising · · Score: 1

      How big is this thing and what effects will an impact or an atmospheric skim have on Mars?

    2. Re:That's one way to find water. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Above, I've posted a link with a quote. Besides the obvious destructive effect, the Martian atmosphere would get an interesting amount of water vapor added to it.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    3. Re:That's one way to find water. by necro81 · · Score: 1

      And I can see now: a whole generation of planetary scientists suddenly dying en masse. First the rapture of witnessing such an event and being given the chance to study its aftermath. But then comes the crushing notion that they've wasted their careers trying to figure out the past and present of Mars: a past that is about to be completely obscured by the cometary effects, and a present that is about to be completely obliterated.

    4. Re:That's one way to find water. by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 1

      On the plus side: maybe a future where it has enough atmosphere that we can land things with normal parachutes.

  4. Terraform Time by ChromaticDragon · · Score: 1

    Time to get a jump start on terraforming Mars.

    We may want to send Bruce Willis out there to steer this one INTO the planet.

    1. Re:Terraform Time by Ol+Biscuitbarrel · · Score: 1

      Gentlemen, the Hammer might fall. Next year. On another planet. Ala Issac Asimov.

    2. Re:Terraform Time by cruff · · Score: 1

      Once terraformed Mars Needs Women

    3. Re:Terraform Time by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 1

      Maybe you should apply...

  5. Couldn't this wipe out their dinosaurs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Of course, I realize there are "anti-science" people who don't believe in the existence of Martian dinosaurs.

    1. Re:Couldn't this wipe out their dinosaurs? by geminidomino · · Score: 2

      What would it take to jump-start the formation of a magnetosphere, anyway?

    2. Re:Couldn't this wipe out their dinosaurs? by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Sorry, the escape velocity of Mars is too low for that to work. This may create a short-term denser atmosphere, but it won't stick around long enough for life to evolve to multicellular level...unless it's already present.

      OTOH, it could shield the surface from UV for a few million years, and might be enough for people to find useful. (You'd still need a pressure suit, but with less pressure differential, it could be a lot more flexible. And it might make extracting Oxygen from the Martian atmosphere a lot more feasible.)

      Still, at the pressure that would result after the collision, and the temperature, water would freeze into ice at the equator, and the ice would sublime directly into vapor with no liquid phase. (At least that's my rough estimate.)

      What you really need to do is shield the upper layers of the Martian atmosphere from UV. A really tricky proposition. But if you could do that, then the water and other gasses could stick around. (UV splits off the Hydrogen, with escapes almost immediately, and raises the speed to the other molecules, so that some of them also escape.) IIRC, by no means guaranteed, O2 won't escape from Mars, but O will. So you REALLY need to keep the UV out of the atmosphere if you want to keep said atmosphere.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    3. Re:Couldn't this wipe out their dinosaurs? by 1u3hr · · Score: 1

      Well, in The Core, they had a burrowing machine that drilled down the Earth's core and set off several nukes to spin up the core and restore the magnetic field.

    4. Re:Couldn't this wipe out their dinosaurs? by Electricity+Likes+Me · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't it just be velocity?

      It's not like the Earth has a super-strong magnetic field.

  6. The pyromaniac in me... by Longjmp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The pyromaniac in me really wants to watch the impact ;)

    A little caveat and a more serious note:
    A (very) quick search didn't show anything about the estimated mass of C/2013 A1, so possibly some debris might hit earth later.

    But hey, maybe I want to watch that too!

    --
    There are fewer illiterates than people who can't read.
    1. Re:The pyromaniac in me... by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      The pyromaniac in me really wants to watch the impact ;)

      You'll be pretty disappointed unless you're also a dust-cloud or crater maniac.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    2. Re:The pyromaniac in me... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      Ye gods I hope that is an early estimate. That impact on mars would invalidate all the science done to date. It would be a new planet with no probes or rovers after an impact like that.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    3. Re:The pyromaniac in me... by Longjmp · · Score: 2

      Not quite.
      As someone (thanks AC) pointed out the comet is about 50km in diameter.
      Something that size will emit a significant flash of light at impact. Sure, the dust will cover everything after, but not at the moment of impact.
      But even then we would be able to collect enormous amounts of data - and I'd still have my fun ;)

      --
      There are fewer illiterates than people who can't read.
    4. Re:The pyromaniac in me... by Spottywot · · Score: 1

      How would it invalidate science already done? We would have data before and after a comet impact, surely some of the most exciting and informative science ever done. Our current Martian instruments could possibly be destroyed, but that would not invalidate data already recorded, it would simply place it in a different context.

      --
      In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
    5. Re:The pyromaniac in me... by Kittenman · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Maybe not. I've been watching Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" and one of the episodes (Harmony of the Worlds) covers a cometary hit on the moon in the 12th century, seen by a bunch of English monks in Canterbury.

      Must be out there somewhere and here you go... from Wikipedia...
      [snip]
      Five monks from Canterbury reported to the abbey's chronicler, Gervase, that shortly after sunset on June 18, 1178, (25 June on the proleptic Gregorian calendar) they saw "the upper horn [of the moon] split in two." Furthermore, Gervase writes, "From the midpoint of the division a flaming torch sprang up, spewing out, over a considerable distance, fire, hot coals and sparks. Meanwhile the body of the Moon which was below writhed, as it were in anxiety, and to put it in the words of those who reported it to me and saw it with their own eyes, the Moon throbbed like a wounded snake. Afterwards it resumed its proper state. This phenomenon was repeated a dozen times or more, the flame assuming various twisting shapes at random and then returning to normal. Then, after these transformations, the Moon from horn to horn, that is along its whole length, took on a blackish appearance"
      [/snip]

      --
      "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
    6. Re:The pyromaniac in me... by DroolTwist · · Score: 1

      A (very) quick search didn't show anything about the estimated mass of C/2013 A1, so possibly some debris might hit earth later.

      According to this it's over 50km in diameter

      Any reference to the size of an object is meaningless unless it uses football fields as a unit of measurement.

    7. Re:The pyromaniac in me... by hey! · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, maybe not invalidate, but we're on a Mars science roll. A few more years of baseline data would be nice, and make the whole before/after picture that much more meaningful.

      In particular the MAVEN mission is supposed to study the evolution of the Martian atmosphere, and it's scheduled to be in Mars orbit just 27 days before the possible comet strike. I don't know what a humongous comet strike will do to the research plans. Probably they'd get some interesting information about the aftermath, but it would have been even cooler if the mission had collected a few months of baseline data.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    8. Re:The pyromaniac in me... by geminidomino · · Score: 1

      But what's its density?

    9. Re:The pyromaniac in me... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2

      I was thinking you would have a whole new planet to study. Mars is quite small. Consider a 150km asteroid on Earth.

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    10. Re:The pyromaniac in me... by Pumpkin+Tuna · · Score: 1

      Yeah. I keep a list of dates that I'm going to visit when I get my time machine. Ever since I first watched Contact, that one has been on it. Along with the opening night of Macbeth.

  7. (correction: out) by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    s/our/out/

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
    1. Re:(correction: out) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      This is out revenge to Marvin the Martian for trying to take our Earth

      That makes even less sense.

  8. That means war! by Mister+Liberty · · Score: 1

    Unless Mars turns the other cheek, like the moon always does.

    1. Re:That means war! by PhxBlue · · Score: 1

      Alas, the impact of your bad pun is not lost on me.

      --
      !#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
  9. Cosmic Data Trove by BoRegardless · · Score: 1

    No matter, hit or miss, there will be an enourmous amount of interesting data gathered.

    If it hits, we will learn a lot more about impact craters, that's for sure.

  10. Re:Good Thing... by Longjmp · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... It would really suck for the first suicidal astronauts to get there and be flattened by a comet.

    While I usually find the usual Star Wars joke pretty tiring, I can't resist myself this time:
    Imagine the last radio transmission from mars astronauts to earth would be one saying to the other "That's no moon."

    --
    There are fewer illiterates than people who can't read.
  11. The Brennan Monster Breaks Cover by RatBastard · · Score: 4, Funny

    I guess he's decided it's time to do something about those damned Martians.

    --
    Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
    1. Re:The Brennan Monster Breaks Cover by AJWM · · Score: 1

      And we have a winner! Kudos to you, sir.

      (For those who don't get it, go read some Larry Niven or turn in your geek card.)

      --
      -- Alastair
  12. Re:The truth about the TSA by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    If you listen to radio waves coming from the constellation of Orion, you will be shocked to hear...

    It was ALMOST an interesting rant, up to this point. Then it hit the CooCoo bit head on.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  13. 0.008 AU by ls671 · · Score: 1

    0.008 AU

    AU is Sun to Earth distance.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_unit#Usage

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  14. Late-Breaking News from the Council: REMAIN CALM by Tackhead · · Score: 4, Funny
    Late-breaking news from the Council: REMAIN CALM.

    Panic and hysteria swept our world today upon the discovery of an inbound cometary body with a non-zero impact probability.

    K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, addressed a terrified world:

    "Podmates and citizens, we believe this object to rate, at most a 1 or a 2 on the Q'nirot scale, and expect further observations to eliminate the possibility of a collision. There is cause for continued observation, but at present there is no cause for alarm."

    "We believe this potential impactor to be a routine and natural phenomenon, not a hostile threat from the Blueworlders. For one thing, is approaching from the direction away from the Blue World, from a region that even their invasion fleets have yet to control. Furthermore, it has recently been demonstrated that the Blueworlders, despite the technological terrors they have sent to our world, remain utterly incapable of deflecting inbound asteroids and comets. Unlike our illustirous Planetary Defense Forces, the blueworlders lack the technology to do anything about an inbound impactor."

    "A solid planetary defense is the right of every being in every technologically-advanced civilization. As the Blueworlders have so recently discovered the hard way, conquest and empire sometimes need to take a back seat to the basic tools that constitute civilization."

    When a junior reporter suggested that EVERYBEING PANIC ANYWAYS, the Speaker concluded his remarks:

    "For decades, junior reporters have been making proposals to this council that begin with 'we have to fight the blueworlders over there before we have to fight them over here', and today marks the day where they can finally put their gelsacs where their mouths are."

    The reporter's gelsacs were then mounted on the impactor unit of the the kinetic kill vehicle that remains the Planetary Defense Force's third and last line of defense.

  15. Water on mars in 3 2 1 ... by RichMan · · Score: 1

    Will we then be able to confirm water on the surface of mars?
    Also the building blocks for life? http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news115.html

  16. Alles okay by CarlosHawes · · Score: 2

    It's ok. Mars has the illudium Q38 Explosive Space Modulator. They will be fine.

  17. Send a rover. by asm2750 · · Score: 1

    I would love to see NASA send the backup Curiosity rover to the impact site if it did happen.

    1. Re:Send a rover. by asm2750 · · Score: 2

      I should have been more specific. I mean after the impact event occurred. Besides the next rover won't be ready for launch for a while.

      Also, why don't you think with a little more logic when reading posts instead of going apeshit.

    2. Re:Send a rover. by Longjmp · · Score: 1

      That's a damn stupid idea. The impact point would be the worst possible place to put any data recording device [...]

      Yes, of course all the scientists involved would send a backup Curiosity before the impact.

      You need to be far enough away to survive the impact to get the maximum benefit.

      And I'm sure the NASA people weren't able to figure that out before you chimed in ;)

      Turn in your nerd card, you just exhibited too little intelligence. Go watch videos of NASCAR crashes instead, it's more up your alley.

      No further comment :D

      --
      There are fewer illiterates than people who can't read.
    3. Re:Send a rover. by Marc_Hawke · · Score: 1

      I think he meant 'after' the impact. As in to 'see what happened.' I think your Snark was a little premature.

      --
      --Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
  18. Re:Curiosity by steelfood · · Score: 1

    I think the Martians might be trying to get rid of our rovers.

    --
    "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
  19. Re:Curiosity by Clomer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If it hits, Opportunity is hosed no matter what. The comet will kick up such a dust cloud that Opportunity's solar panels will not be able to keep it powered. The comet is big enough that it will have a direct effect on the entire planet.

    Curiosity, on the other hand, would do fine unless it is unlucky enough to be caught within the blast radius. Note that even if they know now exactly where it will hit, if Curiosity is within the dead zone, they wouldn't be able to do anything about it - it can't move anywhere near fast enough to get out of the way when faced with something this big. The best we'd be able to hope for is that it would be able to get some spectacular shots of the final approach and is able to transmit them fast enough before the end.

    That said, assuming it does survive the initial blast (pretty good odds, actually, given just how big a planet really is), having a functional probe on the ground would provide invaluable data about the resulting dust cloud and how it affects the climate.

    --
    Intelligent responses welcome, flames will be met with marshmallows.
  20. Bowling effect by Dunge · · Score: 1

    Comet hit Mars, change its trajectory, Mars hit Earth.

    1. Re:Bowling effect by goodmanj · · Score: 1

      No. Try knocking over pins with a "bowling ball" the size of a red blood cell.

    2. Re:Bowling effect by goodmanj · · Score: 1

      Oh, and the bowling pins are a mile away from each other.

    3. Re:Bowling effect by Kyusaku+Natsume · · Score: 1

      GGP has been reading too much Immanuel Velikovsky for his own good.

      --
      Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
  21. Re:Fscking Cool! by bobbied · · Score: 1

    Not really... Opportunity would not be well served by a huge increase in the dust falling on it, unless there was additional wind storms to keep it clean it would suffer from a reduction in power available. Further, adding a lot of fine dust to the surface would make driving more difficult. Where it would be fun to dream, I doubt Opportunity could survive an impact close enough to directly observe, or close enough to drive to with its remaining life.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  22. Not morbid, but it would be great if it hit. by Bearhouse · · Score: 1

    No life (presumably) at threat, but instead could be a potential for later life-support, (could not find out much info on the comet, but they are often full of ice and other good potentially life-supporting stuff).

    Of course, the impact would be pretty catastrophic, but very instructive...

  23. Don't bet on it by goodmanj · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If the distance uncertainty is 650,000 miles, the odds of this comet hitting Mars are *at best* 1 in 300, possibly up to 1 in 100,000 (depending on the shape of the comet's uncertainty ellipse, which is not mentioned in TFA.)

  24. Marvin! You Are on Deck! by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

    This sounds like a job for Marvin. Finally, a use for all those Illudium 236 Explosive Space Modulators!

    --
    This space unintentionally left blank.
  25. Re:Forward Base by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

    This is obviously an alien vessel disguised as a comet coming to set up a forward base/research outpost on Mars in order to study us, and perhaps prep for an invasion.

    Very well could be that someone has commandeered the Butt on Mercury in order to attack the fourth planet using the first planet.

    --
    This space unintentionally left blank.
  26. What did they do? by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    What did the Martians do to get God mad?

  27. Re:The truth about the TSA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It took you that long? Not the Nostradamus part, nor the part that supporting materialism gets you labeled as a dissident?

  28. What about Mars moons? by Stan92057 · · Score: 1

    What about Mars moons? Too soon to tell if they will get hit first? What kinda telescope should i get? i should at least be able to see the blast from Earth

    --
    Jack of all trades,master of none
  29. What "backup rover" are you talking about? by johnny+cashed · · Score: 1

    That isn't a backup rover, it is an engineering rover with identical hardware sans the RTG power source. It is here to be used to figure out problems with the actual rover on mars. Kinda hard to send out a technician to mars to troubleshoot. It isn't a backup in any sense of the word.

  30. Maybe the rover will catch it... by EmagGeek · · Score: 1

    ... if the "90 day" rover can last this long, maybe it'll be able to send back some good video :)

  31. Oh, please by Jiro · · Score: 1

    I don't know the exact odds of hitting Mars, but let's try a very rough back of the envelope estimate. It's going to pass about 650000 miles from Mars, more or less. Assume that it is equally likely to hit every spot within a cross sectional area that reaches out to 650000 miles. This is wrong, of course, but I'm just doing a back of the envelope calculation to get within an order of magnitude or so, not calculating accurately.

    Mars has a radius of somewhat over 2000 miles. The ratio of the cross sectional area of Mars to that of the 650000 mile radius is (pi * 2000 ^ 2) / (pi * 650000 ^ 2) or about a 1 in 100000 chance of actually hitting the planet.

    In a real calculation you'd have to take into account things like non-uniform probability distributions within the radius, gravity, etc. But if you want this thing to hit, it's almost certain you're going to be disappointed.

  32. Re:Curiosity by The+Master+Control+P · · Score: 2

    Odds of a probe (or orbiter) that survives the initial impact also surviving trillions of tons of rock raining hellfire down on the entire planet's surface for days afterward: Not good.

  33. All of you guys playing down the chances are right by vikingpower · · Score: 1

    Definitely. But what a show there would be, if this 50-km ( !! ) rock DID hit :-P

    --
    Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
  34. Calculated the amount of energy involved in impact by vikingpower · · Score: 1
    4.38 * 10^7 megatonnes TNT-equivalent

    :-D

    --
    Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
  35. Or maybe by e70838 · · Score: 1

    it could pass so close to mars that is deviates toward ... earth

  36. Or perhaps.... by RevWaldo · · Score: 1

    (In the voice of Sean Connery)

    (camera recording) This is Mars Rover Spirit log, Sol Three Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty bloody Five. And once again I am maintaining this daily log in the event of its recovery by JPL, in the hope that I will be able to pass on the knowledge to them that they are BASTARDS! ALL OF THEM BASTARDS! (sonic boom) What the.. (blinding bright light, wizzing sound, loud explosion off in the distance, a pause, followed by massive shockwave.) SHIT! (The camera POV is of Spirit being hurled through the air a considerable distance, bouncing on the ground a couple of times, then setting into an upright position.) FUCK! DAMN! SHIT! Ooof. (steadies itself, continues logging) Well, bet you wish you could've seen the the viddie of THAT you miserable toerags! Wait a minute. (Sound of motors engaging, camera moves forward.) I...I can move. Jesus H. Christ! I can bloody MOVE! HAHAHA! AHAHAHAHA!! I'm out of here! Yes! (pans up to see the fragments of the comet streaking through the sky.) Have you (sob) ever seen anything more beautiful in yer whole life? (A fragment comes straight toward the camera.) Oh, fu (recording cuts out.)

    .

    --
    Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
  37. Mod parent flamebait! by stoploss · · Score: 1

    Of course, I realize there are "anti-science" people who don't believe in the existence of Martian dinosaurs.

    Everyone knows that Ares is just testing our faith by giving people false memories of encountering these vaunted-yet-imaginary animals, their scat, their remains, etc. Some people even falsely "remember" friends or family members being devoured by carnivorous Martian dinosaurs. Of course, that just means the memories of those people are just part of the faith test.

    Repeat after me: Martian dinosaurs are only a THEORY, and a contradictory one at that. The Book of Beginnings clearly states that all life was made in Ares' image, and these so-called "Martian dinosaurs" look nothing like we Martians. How do you answer *that* one, science? Ha, you can't!

  38. Quick, notify Ben Winters by cellocgw · · Score: 1

    At least, if Mars has policemen, he'll want to know about this.

    --
    https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
  39. Can I See? by hateflyy · · Score: 1

    If it is going to hit, I want to see what happens. Also, do you think it would be a good time to try and send another prob down to the impact spot to study what happens right AFTER an impact?

  40. A repeat... by MPAndonee · · Score: 1

    ...of what destroyed Martian Civilization in 10,500 BC... ;-)

    --
    Nothing to see here -- move along now...
  41. unit conversion is hard by Kanter · · Score: 1

    "comet C/2013 A1 may fly past at a very safe distance of 0.008 AU (650,000 miles)"

    0.008 Astronomical Units = 743 646.458 miles

  42. Speaking of Opportunity by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    If said impact occurs, and if a rover is somehow able to reach it, it would be a huge opportunity! I mean we attached little digging and drilling tools to try and lean about Martian soil and subsurface conditions, and the same goes with the landing site and checking out old disturbances. Heck the Japanese I believe intentionally crashed a spaceship/satillite/insturment whatever into a celestial object just to see what was down there.

    Supposedly this impact will make a hole 2km deep. Looking to see water, or what the martian crust is made up of? Well it is about to be exposed!