ortion above the ecliptic plane, and the dark blue the portion below the ecliptic plane. Orbit Viewer applet originally written and kindly provided by Osamu Ajiki (AstroArts), and further modified by Ron Baalke (JPL).]
..On 1st October, 2013 (figure 2 below) , this Comet will be closest to Mars. (graphics below shows this. )
On 28th November 2013, the Comet C/2012 S1 will graze past the Sun (fig 3b below).
On 26th Dec’13, comet ISON (C/2012 S1) moving further away from the Sun will be at its closest to Earth at some 40 millions miles!
Well, that’s all the basics. I’ll be dong more research and exploration on this one.. as the date of closest approach to Sun is quite an important one for me personally.. Even the date of closest approach to Mars is of interest to me…so much so..I think I may have to give this Comet a special magical name of my own. Thor’s Hammer? Centaur’s Arrow? Hern’s Spear? :-)
More on those aspects in another blog :-)
(blog updated on 18Feb13 with Fig 3b above, and previous fig 3 removed. Explanation for name Comet ISON added).