The Federal Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS) is warning in a new report to President Putin today that Russian space defenses should be “immediately activated” and that the 5,000 new civil population bomb shelters completed this past year be “urgently stocked” after scientists confirmed that newly discovered Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) is, indeed, a “planet killer” and has Mars “in its sights.” According to this report, Mars-bound Comet Siding Spring was discovered by Rob McNaught on 3 January at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia after which all of the information relating to this threat was turned over to Project Wormwood run by IPS Radio and Space Services and established at Learmonth Solar Observatory to participate in the first two phases of Planetary Defence. IPS Radio and Space Services is the Australian Space Weather Agency, providing advice to customers in the Australasian area on the near-space environment, and the effects it has on communications, navigation, satellite operations, and other technological systems, whereas the majority of Project Wormwood activities are follow-up astrometry (position measurements) that are required to obtain precise orbits for space objects (asteroids/comets) that have previously been discovered by other programs. US scientists report that they expect Comet Siding Spring’s closest approach to Mars to occur on 19 October 2014, at about 11:45AM. PDT (18:45 GTM), which their latest orbital plot places its closest approach to Mars a little farther out than previously estimated — at about 117,000 kilometers (73,000 miles) from the surface of the Red Planet.
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