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Comet Siding Springs’ Distance From Mars

This graph shows Earth and Earth's moon with a blue line in the middle showing Comet Siding Spring and how close it would come to Earth if Mars were Earth.
October 6, 2014

If Mars were Earth, comet Siding Spring would pass by at about 1/3 the distance of Earth to the Moon. That’s an extremely close encounter! By contrast, the closest a comet has come to Earth in recorded history was about six times farther out than our Moon. Named comet “Lexell,” it was discovered in 1770, but hasn’t been seen since.