Oct 04, 2013 09:52 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Comet ISON passed Mars on its collision course for the sun, a journey that could realistically end before even reaching the great star, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The comet, an estimated two miles long, is on schedule to collide with the sun on Thanksgiving Day, but scientists believe ISON could break apart as it approaches. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured some images of comet ISON with its High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.

"Comets are the rogues of the solar system," said Paul Chodas of JPL's Near Earth Objects office. "They are notoriously hard to predict."

Tuesday marked the closest the comet had been to Mars, at 0.07 AU, the equivalent of 6.5 million miles, six times closer to the Red Planet than it will ever be to Earth.

The photos captured (shown above) were not too stunning, just a dense white clump of dots surrounded by smaller ones. That however, is from images taken Sept. 29. Carey Lisse, a research scientist at Johns Hopkins and the coordinator of NASA's comet ISON observing campaign, said he is anticipating the images taken Oct. 1.

"The comet is a little fainter than expected, but those images that were released were not taken on the closest approach," he said. "We expect the images from Oct. 1st to be bigger and brighter."

HiRISE was not designed to take photos of the sky, but rather the Martain landscape.

"It was not designed to take these kinds of images," he said. "It would take some practice and understanding to make it work perfectly."

Lisse said this is not the kind of comet to get very excited about, but there are still reasons to follow it. It is an ultra-old piece of space matter, 18 spacecraft and telescopes will be looking to capture images of it, including the Hubble which will take a new photo as early as next week.

As shown in this animation, ISON will also become visible from Earth at one point. The model also depicts how the comet will hurdle through the solar system.

"This comet has never, ever been in the inner solar system before," Lisse said, "so it is a 4.5-billion-year-old piece of material."

See Now: Covert Team Inside Newsweek Revealed as Key Players in False Human Trafficking Lawsuit