Meteor may strike Mars

[Brian]

I heard that a Meteor may strike Mars near the end of this month. Does anyone have more information?

[Brian]

Asteroid 2007 WD5 is likely to miss Mars on 30 January, but if it strikes, it would be nice if Pixinsight processors photographed the impact flash.

[Jack Harvey]

We did a similar thing a couple of years ago with Comet Tempel 9p when it impacted with the space probe.  We shot a bunch of images and plotted a light curve that showed the impact.

http://www.starshadows.com/documentation/index.cfm?DocID=1

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Brian

Unfortunately NASA has ruled out the possibility of this collision:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/news/mars-20071221.html

Indeed it would have been fantastic (not for Martians, certainly  :lol: )...

[Brian]

Ah, that's too bad that this collision is going to miss.  Thanks for the news article Juan.

Jack, I did not know about Comet Tempel 9p hitting a space probe.  Were you able to see it visually with the telescope?

[Jack Harvey]

Negative with our terrestrial based 16 inch RCOS.  All the images I have seen were taken by an accompanying satellite that had released the probe for collision, and then filmed it.  The light curve was the best we could do.

[Brian]

I see.

Of course if this asteroid had struck Mars it's impact would be much greater than the collision with a space probe. Am I right in thinking amateur size telescopes would have seen a flash from Asteroid 2007 WD5 hitting Mars?