WASHINGTON — A comet created a once-in-8-million-year fireworks show above Mars last month.
NASA data from satellites circling Mars show that when the comet, Siding Spring, skimmed the red planet, tons of comet dust bombarded the Martian sky with thousands of fireballs an hour. It warped the Martian atmosphere, leaving all sorts of metals and an eerie yellow afterglow Oct. 19.
A meteor shower from magnesium, sodium, iron and five other metals might have been so heavy that it might be even considered a meteor storm, said University of Colorado scientist Nick Schneider.
“It would have been truly stunning to the human eye,” said Schneider, who was the lead instrument scientist for Maven, one of NASA’s Martian satellites.
There was no video to capture the shooting stars from the surface. NASA’s rovers, Opportunity and Curiosity, could take only stills. The Associated Press
