ScienceCasts: Colliding Atmospheres - Mars vs Comet Siding Spring 

This is so very exciting for those of us on earth that study astrophysics. I am truly amazed at how close this comet is coming to the surface of the planet mars. There might be some interaction, but IMAGINE the view from the surface of Mars!!! This giant comet covering the entire length of the sky from horizon to horizon is going to be most impressive. It will be interesting to see what the robot rovers, opportunity and curiosity will see from the ground level. Crossing fingers that this will be a grand show.

Les deseo un Gran Exito en la observacion del Cometa, y Q/nos puedan contar muchas novedades!!!!

Amazing that when Velikovsky wrote about comets colliding with Mars he was astrocised, and still is by the scientific community

I wish I could be on Mars when this happens

Thank you!

Ojalá pudieran hacer la transmisión en vivo.

Such an amazing, once in a lifetime event. Not sure why this isn't making the traditional mass media but I'm really excited to see what the effects are and glad that NASA was able to position themselves to record such important data.

Gracias, interesantisimo

Interesante simulación virtual, gracias a estas recreaciones virtuales se puede reflexionar acerca de estos acontecimientos y sus posibles daños

i like the way devastated magnetic field is shown here... also i see comet or asteroids if they have ice and water too can trigger the martian environment one day or we may push/hurl one towards Mars to trigger Martian Atmosphere into a habitable one..

19. October 2014 Comet will fly near to Mars and it will maybe cause some effects on that planet. Other than that, some nice 3D animations are to be seen in this video, and they are very well done.

@larry silver and @mike wade. The way to make progress in science is not to call competing theories BS. You take current observations, construct or find a theory that is consistent with as many of them as possible then use that theory to make predictions that differ from the competing theories in some given scenario and then observe and see which theory was correct. The "losing" theory is either abandoned as inconsistent or modified to take account of the new data and then used to make new predictions to test it. Please cite testable predictions for this encounter using either the electric universe or dirty snowball theory and then lets see which one stands up to observation. The argument should not be phrased like"your theory is BS" but more like: "your theory predicted aurora and we didn't see any" or "your theory predicted planet-wide meteor showers but we didnt see any"

I have my own theory about the density of planet atmospeheres, which explains why Titan and Venus have far denser atmospheres than what their own gravity can account for. The mechanism behind must be that those planets formed while being surrounded by a massive gas cloud. While part of it initially was attracted by the planet's own gravity, the gas density around the planet's surface increased and by that its own gravity, attracting the planet (mind Newton's gravity law, containing the product of two masses). This became a snowball-effect, by which so much mass of gas was collected, fhat the product of gas and planet masses created enough gravity to form a very dense and stable atmosphere. Mind, that this is only atmosphere-to-planet gravity, not the total gravity, that hardly changes, beause the planet's mass is far greater than the atmospheric mass. For Mars there was too little gas around, so an initially not dense enough atmosphere faded away into space during millions of years, and what remained is mainly due to the planet's own gravity. Mars is too far away from the Sun that solar wind could have had the main impact - Venus is the prove of that (apart from the effects of a magnetic field). Earth was not surrounded by enough gas to form a super dense atmosphere, whilte Titan and Venus were. Nonethless, also Earth's atmosphere creates its own extra gravity to remain as a stable one. In other words, a planet's own gravity is not a measure for its atmosphere's density. Titan is the prove of that, having less gravity than our moon, but an atmosphere that is five times denser than Earth's.

Maven Blackbriar funded this? D:

Excelente información con relación al recorrido de este cuerpo celeste, gracias a la NASA y a su investigación tenemos conocimiento de los avances de la ciencia.

Hola saludos cariñosos para todos mis amigos dios los bendiga hoy y siempre

17 days to go until 19th Oct.

@ 0:32 "Coment" instead of "comet" ??? Lol

Question for NASA: If Comet Siding Spring is that close to Mars atmosphere, will the gravitational pull between the two bodies change the direction of the comet?

mi pensamiento en este momento es de admiración hacia la nasa y toda la investigación del espacio

this always happen, the Earth and most of the planets are within the outer atmosphere of the sun, which causes the Earth Auroras when the sun unleashes it's flares.

It is about cosmos.It is about the life planet ,our homeland. Just take care of it. When we expand our scope enough, we could see more accommodation to our original life.Thanks to NASA!!

How would a direct impact by Comet Sliding Spring affect Mars?

I have a Question::: If here in earth we have the strongests ManMade magnets several times more powerful than the earths magnet... is it possible (if we could take to mars two of these) to create an earth's like magnetic field?

Cool!!! boy. you should deviate rocks in order they crush on mars, get more mass and more gravity and do not leave escape water.

Bravo for NASA, I´m surprice for the development of this proyect.

can debris from the impact move to EARTH?

this beat be molten, molten like lava yes i got that fire

Too bad it wont REALLY collide ... Boom!! a even better show ... and who knows maybe it will form a lake and be used for the first colonists.

ROFL THE DUDES NAME IS BRAIN!!!!!! AND HE WORKS AT FRICKIN NASA!! LOL but yeah cool

Why don't you understand when mars lost it's spinning molten core, do to the largest volcano in this solar system constantly blowing out molten lava. Mars spinning core stooped do to the loss of the lubricating magma, and it's magnetic's left and the atmosphere blue away.

WELL??? It's way past time; 10/22. How did it look? What did we learn? Care to make a video as good as this promo?

LOL, I guess that gigantic gash along Mars side has nothing to do with a catastrophe? LOL, this is why I can only take these spaced out scientists with a big grain of salt.

Redirect the comet to hit mars. Maybe get enough of them together and rebuild Mars' atmosphere. We are going to over populate this planet, good to have a backup.

NASA still punting out the clockwork model to continue to support the creation story (Big Bang - which big bang they never say). The Universe is Electric.

Nasa excellent space

I think the dirty snowball concept is such b.s. It's Electric yo. Look it up at Thunderbolts.info.

Todo lo que. La NASA haga en sus intentos de descubrir, y de dar explicaciones a las cosas que Dios padre hace, nunca lo aclararán, porque su sabiduría es corta, divisoria, y limitada

Things that the average mug tax payer may want to know would be things like: Will the comet be visible from Earth with the naked eye or is it worth, for this once in a Million year event, to pop out and buy some cheap binoculars etc I remember with disgust and deep disappointment when the shoemaker Levi comet event was being (not) televised and seeing a large group of overfunded technocrats intently looking into their personal monitors and then watching their fat little bodies bear hugging each other. Huzzar!!! We, the cork on the fork taxpayes then got to see some computer animations of what had just taken place. A Resounding Hurrah!!! You never know, if the comet does hit Mars we may all get a light show that will indeed be eye opening! Pizar Power and further more Shazam!

How to make things seems boring, thank you NASA and RIP, that's why you don't get many money from the government...

FIRST!

We used to live on mars... And had to move to earth ... Cause we caused all the co2.....and now we are doing the same thing to this planet but no where to go this time... IMHO