Tony said:
I can't find any videos of Mars's explosive reaction to the comet because apparently all the live feed videos got cut off! Is there a cover up going on? How do you know that comet Siding is still on course?
Because amateur astronomers took pictures of the comet days after the close passage on Oct. 19th. For example, a few examples here: _http://spaceweathergallery.com/comet_gallery.html
Until February its elongation will be small, but given its small size (a sub-kilometre nucleus) and its partial disintegration about a month before its close passage to Mars, it's not impossible to have the "emergence" of a dead comet by then, but that's how comets do behave, it's a natural process.
Now one a wilder speculative note, if the secret government artificially made the comet disintegrate in some way around the end of September to protect the spacecrafts, there would be no "explosion" in Mars (the spacecrafts are still there so the "explosion" unlikely unless there was miscalculation). However, an electric discharge ("natural") is not impossible and a possible link could be drawn perhaps to the actual solar activity and the subsequent weather phenomena on Earth.
The live feeds where disappointing and it seems the was no preparation at all for the event. When you have two objects with very different magnitudes, you are tempted to over-saturate the brightest object in order to detect the fainter one. And one you over-saturate, strange things happen that are more related to the equipment than to the object itself. That's how it looks like unless there is more convincing information pointing out to something else.
Added: Here is the analysis of Ignacio Ferrin from the University of Antioquia, Colombia, who had explicitly predicted the disintegration of comet ISON last year: _http://astronomia.udea.edu.co/cometspage/C2013A1SLC-SIDINGSPRING.xhtml
In fact the spacecrafts that will observe A1 from the surface of Mars will be watching at a nearly-dead comet !