Destination Space and NASA are both keeping an eye on a close encounter for the red planet.

A comet is right now flying oh-so-close to Mars.

And several of NASA’s explorers that launched from Florida, are being kept at a distance to avoid damage, but also get a good view of something not seen in a million or so years.

MAVEN launched from Florida’s Space Coast nearly a year ago, and last month, it arrived at its final destination, the Martian atmosphere.

Just in time for a close encounter with a comet as heavy as a small mountain, flying, at its closest just 87,000 miles from the red planet.

Siding Spring, as it’s called, is traveling at 126,000 miles per hour.

“That means very high velocity; so anything that comes off the comet that hits either Mars or the spacecraft, is going to pack a real large amount of kinetic energy, a real wallop,” said Carey Lisse, Senior Astrophysicist, Johns Hopkins University.

So NASA maneuvered its three orbiters, including MAVEN to limit any damaged from dust or particles falling off the comet.

“All our spacecraft will be on the opposite side of the planet, so the planet will provide additional protection, we believe we need to be able to make these observations from our Mars spacecraft,” said Jim Green, Director, NASA’s Planetary Division.

In addition to the orbiters, two rovers, Opportunity and Curiosity are NASA’s eyes on the ground, looking up at the comet and its massive tail.

NASA is using its five robotic explorers to give us this extremely close view, because we’ve never been able to see a comet this close from our own planet.

Just give you an idea of how close this comet is flying by Mars, it would be a third of the distance between us here on Earth and our Moon.

And NASA believes this view, will be able to provide clues as to how our solar system formed.

“So think about a comet that traveled at the dawn of man and is now just coming in close now and the reason we can actually observe is because we have built satellites and rovers and we now have outposts around Mars,” said Lisse.

A super close flyby, one that scientists are glad is happening 140 million miles away from us here on Earth.