Comet Siding Spring: Once in a Million Years

Astronomers are excited about Comet Siding Spring’s very close encounter with Mars this coming Sunday. Siding Spring was spotted back in January 2013. An Oort Cloud comet, it’s said to be the size of a small mountain, with a million-year orbit. A posse of spacecraft and Mars rovers are jockeying into position right now to observe it. Here on Earth, the comet will be visible with binoculars in the Southern Hemisphere.

How close will Comet Siding Spring come to Mars? 83,000 miles–which in space distances is a hair’s breadth, about a third of the distance between here and the Moon. Last year, before they’d plotted out its trajectory, astronomers were genuinely worried that the comet might hit Mars.

Its trajectory is such that it’ll never get closer to the Earth than some 83 million miles, so no need to panic yet. Of course, passing that close to Mars, there’s a possibility that Siding Spring might upset the Red Planet’s orbit, throwing the whole solar system out of whack, in which case, well . . . Best not to think about that.

onceinmillio

Photos from Baton Rouge Reading

Thanks to Angus Woodward for organizing our event on Oct. 12 at the Baton Rouge Gallery, and thanks to everybody who came out–especially all my mom’s friends.

Here are a few pictures from “Works in Progress: Four Baton Rouge Writers.” With Laurie Lynn Drummond and Chris Tusa.

Laurie Lynn Drummond

Chris Tusa

Me

The Comet Chaser Readies for Touchdown

A few weeks ago I posted about how the European Space Agency’s “Rosetta” aircraft has intercepted Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko after chasing it for ten years through the planets.

The latest news, for all you space geeks, is that the touchdown site on the comet has been identified, and on November 11 a probe will leave Rosetta and land on the comet.

X marks the spot:

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Goodreads Giveaway

There’s a Goodreads promo on for THE NIGHT OF THE COMET that somehow slipped my notice until now. Enter before Aug. 25 to win one of 15 free copies of the book.

More here at Goodreads.

The Comet Chaser Catches Its Comet

The big news in space today is that the European Space Agency’s “Rosetta” spacecraft has, after a ten-year journey, finally rendezvoused with its target, Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenk.

Here’s a picture of Comet C-G up close:

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I mentioned the comet chaser in a post back in January. The New York Times has a front-page article about the Rosetta mission in the paper today.

The Times writes:

“From a distance, the blurry blob initially looked somewhat like a rubber duck. As the details came into focus, it began to bear a closer resemblance to a knob of ginger flying through space.”

The comet’s far enough from the sun (330 million miles) that it’s still just a hunk of ice and rock. As it gets closer, the sun will heat the comet and it will begin to acquire the familiar coma and tail of a comet.

The Rosetta spacecraft will accompany Comet C-G for a year, flying right alongside it as it circles the sun.