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WORLD

Comet C/2013 Siding Spring might hit Mars in 2014

05.03.2013 [17:10]
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Baku, March 5 (AZERTAC). Astronomers hold fears a comet is on a collision course with Mars.

The comet, named C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring), was spotted at the start of this year by Robert McNaught at the Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales.

Calculations put the closest approach of the comet at a distance of 109,200km from Mars in October 2014.

But there is still a chance the comet might collide with the red planet.

Ian O’Neill from Discovery Space told NBC News it's too early to know if a collision will take place.

''The comet has only been observed for 74 days (so far), so it's difficult for astronomers to forecast precisely where the comet will be 20 months from now,'' he said.

Either way astronomers, professional and amateur alike, are bracing for a spectacular scene.

Australian amateur astronomer Ian Musgrave's among them.

''Even if it doesn't impact, it will look pretty good from Earth, and spectacular from Mars, probably a magnitude -4 comet as seen from Mars' surface,' Musgrave wrote on the IceIceSpace amateur astronomy forum.

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