Mars Comet News

Nov. 7, 9 a.m. PST (noon EST, 1700 GMT) NASA hosted a media teleconference to discuss science findings of the Oct. 19 flyby of Mars by comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring. NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and a radar instrument aboard the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft provided the first close-up studies of the comet that originated from the distant, outer reaches of our solar system. The participants were: - Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington - Nick Schneider, instrument lead for MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph, University of Colorado, Boulder - Mehdi Benna, instrument scientist for MAVEN's Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland - Don Gurnett, co-investigator on the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument on Mars Express, University of Iowa, Iowa City - Alan Delamere, co-investigator for MRO's HiRISE instrument, Delamere Support Services, Boulder, Colorado