Replica ugg boots were also slated

Comets are time capsules of a sort,Replica ugg boots  remnants left over from the solar system's formation 4.6 billion years ago. Studying them can reveal insights about the conditions prevailing when the planets first started coming together, researchers say.

And Siding Spring, which was discovered in January 2013, is an especially pristine time capsule. It's making its first-ever trip to the inner solar system from the Oort Cloud, a shell of trillions of comets that lies perhaps 50,000 astronomical units from the sun. (One astronomical unit, or AU, is the distance from Earth to the sun —about 93 million miles, or 150 million km.)

Siding Spring — whose fake ugg boots for women core is between 0.5 and 5 miles (0.8 to 8 km) wide — has never been baked by the sun, so the comet likely looks much as it did 4.6 billion years ago.

Today's Mars flyby therefore presented a unique opportunity, scientists say. No space mission has ever visited an Oort Cloud comet; indeed, the core of such a body has never been resolved in an image before.

"NASA's Planetary Science assets – including the MAVEN spacecraft which just entered Mars’ orbit last month – are in prime positions to gather data and record this once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon," Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Science, Space, knock off uggs for kids and Technology Committee, said in a statement after the comet flyby. "These are the events that inspire our imaginations and remind us why we must continue investing in planetary science and NASA's primary mission of space exploration."

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) aimed to photograph Siding Spring's core today. Curiosity and Opportunity were going to try to make history as well, capturing the first-ever images of a comet from the surface of another world.

"Opportunity and Curiosity are on opposite sides of the planet," Lemmon said. "Opportunity will take images from the surface in the dawn twilight, hours before the comet buzzes Mars. After the sun sets on the other side of the planet, Curiosity will take pictures as the comet departs Mars."

NASA's Mars Odyssey and newly arrived MAVEN spacecraft (short for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), India's Mangalyaan orbiter and Europe's Mars Express probe were also slated to observe the encounter from orbit. MAVEN is especially suited to study any interaction between Siding Spring's dust and Mars' upper atmosphere, which could reveal insights about the Red Planet's air.

While a collision with any shed cometary material could result in serious damage, NASA officials are not too worried about their spacecraft. The orbiters were moved toreplica uggs for women be on Mars' "safe side" during the time of highest dust exposure, and Curiosity and Opportunity are protected by the planet's atmosphere.