Comet ISON will safely pass by Mars today (October 1st) as it makes its journey toward the sun. It will be around 6.7 million miles (10.8 million km) from Mars. It will not hit Mars.
ScienceCast video from August 15, 2013:
Images from the HiRISE camera from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter should be available within the next couple of days.
ISON is not visible to the naked eye, and it is still a very faint object in our night sky, as well as on or near Mars. Mars rover Curiosity will attempt to make observations of ISON, and hopefully some good photos will be taken.
Here’s a photo of Comet ISON and Mars as seen from Earth.
Here are a couple of tweets about ISON and Mars.
Comet ISON and Mars Imaged Together During Close Approach http://t.co/P2d9p1QXgd
— Universe Today (@universetoday) October 2, 2013
Comet #ISON imaged by Alfons Diepvens via the Olmen Observatory (C23) http://t.co/fO0uojrcgq #cometison pic.twitter.com/MtBmCobk3I
— Comet ISON (@CometISONnews) October 2, 2013
Here's a "teaser" sum stack crop of the #ISON image,we've removed the science parts as still working on them – pic.twitter.com/BVih1dUhUE
— Nick Howes (@NickAstronomer) October 1, 2013
Comet #ISON at 15:10UT: 0.0725AU from Mars, traveling at 32.9km/s. Just over 2hrs from closest approach to Mars!
— Sungrazing Comets (@SungrazerComets) October 1, 2013
Early October should see Comet #ISON breaking +10th magnitude and reaching binocular visibility: http://t.co/MNMP4ec78g #space
— David Dickinson (@Astroguyz) October 1, 2013
Comet #ISON is not visible to the naked eye, but here's what the morning sky looks like (10/01 5:00 AM CT) #cometison pic.twitter.com/R6NRdAVGWQ
— Comet ISON (@CometISONnews) October 1, 2013
Inbound #Comet ISON makes its closest pass to #Mars today. http://t.co/b4cvG6ThlI
— Pete Zapadka (@pzapadka) October 1, 2013
Hopefully should hear by the end of the week whether the @ESA and @NASA Mars spacecraft successfully imaged comet #ISON
— Sungrazing Comets (@SungrazerComets) October 1, 2013
@paganinisviolin I think 17:26 GMT is close approach (UTC and GMT are the same thing right now)
— Sungrazing Comets (@SungrazerComets) October 1, 2013
Right now, comet #ISON is ~0.073AU from Mars, traveling at 32.9km/s — almost at closest approach to the Red Planet!
— Sungrazing Comets (@SungrazerComets) October 1, 2013
Comet #ISON sunward jet analysis by Toni Scarmato, image by Bruce Gary http://t.co/p5xWAwvYMl #cometison #falsecolors pic.twitter.com/sBmljTVXza
— Comet ISON (@CometISONnews) October 1, 2013
#Comet #ISON makes closest approach to #Mars today, at distance of abt 10.5 million km. Good luck MEX & MRO with observations from Mars!
— ESA Science (@esascience) October 1, 2013
We are still processing data from Comet #ISON images. We may have something in a day or two.
— HiRISE (@HiRISE) October 1, 2013
17 hours until comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) makes Mars close approach 2013-Oct-01 17:26
— Charles Bell (@cbellh47) October 1, 2013
My understanding is @MarsCuriosity will attempt #ISON obs but with a faint target, there's no promises. (We <3 them for even trying!) #CIOC
— Sungrazing Comets (@SungrazerComets) September 28, 2013
Mars image credit: NASA
Comet ISON passes by Mars,