Mars Could Be Hit By Comet C/2013 A1 With Billion-Megaton Impact

[wmaousley]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013...ncid=webmail11


Mars could be hit by a comet with the power of a billion megatons in 2014, astronomers have said.

The comet C/2013 A1 was discovered earlier this year by Robert McNaught at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia.

While discovered between Jupiter and Saturn, it was projected that it would make a close pass by the planet next year.

But according to a new recalculation, the comet may hit our nearest planetary neighbour after all.

Researcher Leonid Elenin said there is now a slightly higher chance of the impact occurring - even if the actual odds are still quite low.

In fact the path of the comet is so uncertain it may still end up more than a million kilometres from its surface.

The movements of comets are difficult to predict, because as they approach the sun their structure is affected by increases in temperature which can throw it off course.

But if it were to hit the planet, the result could be major disruption. It has a speed relative to mars of about 56 kilometres/second, and could leave a crater about 500km across and 2km deep.

Either way, it appears that the rovers currently on Mars - including Curiosity - as well as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter could capture a view of the ball of ice and dust as it passes by - or into - the planet.

194,400 kmph is pretty fast

[krugerr]

Can you imagine what a mind fuk it would be that the planet has been around millions of years and we just happened to live when it was being destroyed

Well our universe is estimated to be 13.7billion years old. Its assumed to be expanding because in all the directions we look, the light we're receiving is phase shifted. The light appears to lean slightly more toward the red spectrum, which means its light waves have been stretched out because it is moving away. Think like the doppler effect with sound, if its moving toward you the sound gets faster, because the sound waves bunch up, as it moves away the sound gets slower as its stretched out. As to what shape our universe is, thats heavily debated, some think spherical, others ring-donut, and some think saddle shaped. I love this topic because it is so vast!

In regards to the matter in the big-bang. It was infinitely hot, infinitely dense. It could well have been a previously collapsing universe. It collapsed all the way back to a singularity and then expanded again.