NASA Reveals Comet Siding Spring Flyby Produced Thousands Of Shooting Stars

If you still remember several news reports, Comet Siding Spring spawned several tons of dust and ice particles on planet Mars last month, approximately producing thousands of shooting stars.

The US space agency NASA, recently, accumulated data from two of its spacecrafts, which gave an insight about the structure of the comet as well as the Martian atmosphere.

As per the data, the entire configuration was changed due to the large amount of dust and other fragments. It also released a meteor shower, which ended up giving birth to several atmospheric alterations.

According to Jim Green, the director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, “The scientists were really surprised by the large quantity of particles comet produced. The magnesium break down the electric charge present in the Martian atmosphere. On the other hand, sodium formed a yellowish shade in the night sky that people usually witness in their parking lots at night.”

This is the first time scientists observed this kind of ionization in the atmosphere because of any comet, he added. It increased the layer of ions in the top most level of atmosphere. Some of the most noteworthy ions were sodium, iron and magnesium.
Nick Schneider, the main instrument scientist of one of the NASA’s satellite, said, “It was indeed an amazing sight for the human eye.”

The Martian Surface was the best place to witness this meteor shower. However, it was impossible for space experts to view the incident from there. Therefore, NASA sent two of its rover over there in order to record this amazing meteor shower, but, unfortunately, the rovers failed to document the meteor shower due to some technical fault.
(Image: NASA)