Comet Siding Spring Animation

Views from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter released Friday show the crash site where Europe’s experimental Schiaparelli lander fell to the red planet’s surface from a height of several miles, leaving a distinct dark patch on the Martian landscape.

The sharpest, most detailed observations of a comet breaking apart have been captured with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The images suggest that the roughly 4.5-billion-year-old comet, named 332P/Ikeya-Murakami, may be spinning so fast that material is ejected from its surface. The resulting debris is now scattered along a 3,000-mile-long trail.

Exactly a week after its close encounter with dazzling Venus, outer planet Uranus lies close to Mars on the evening of Wednesday, March 11th — but you’ll need to time your observation carefully in the dusk twilight twilight to ensure success.