(meteorobs) for Mars?

[dfischer at astro.uni-bonn.de]

> " current estimate
 has it passing about 31,000 miles (50,000 kilometers)
> from the Red Planet's surface."

More like 110,000 km - the orbit has been refined further with newer
astrometry (which has also brought down the impact probability for the
comet's nucleus to under 1:2000). Whether Mars will be affected at all
depends on the coma size of Siding Spring while still at Mars' solar
distance; most seem to think now that several spacecraft on or around the
planet might get an interesting view of the comet but its effects on the
planet itself would be subtle at best.

Dan