Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Hubble Captures Picture of Asteroid Collision
Bad Astronomy writes Hubble captures picture of asteroid collision! "This is a false-color image showing the object, called P/2010 A2, in visible light. The long tail of debris is obvious; this is probably dust being blown back by the solar wind, similar to the way a comet’s tail is blown back. What apparently has happened is that two small, previously-undiscovered asteroids collided, impacting with a speed of at least 5 km/sec (and possibly faster). The energy in such a collision is like setting off a nuclear bomb, or actually many nuclear bombs! The asteroids shattered, and much of the debris expanded outward as pulverized dust."
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2 comments:
Excellent photo. Thanks for sharing.
Two asteroids colliding are like two bullets colliding (say in Sweden, where there are not a lot of bullets flying around per square mile).
Although, I like the theory of the colliding asteroids, the tail and "debris field" seem too structured for a violent collision. I'm guessing if it were due to a collision, it must have happened a while ago, and we are looking at the older/ancient(?) remants.
TT
The article has more but at 90 million miles, that's the distance between the sun and the earth, about 8 minutes at light speed.
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