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."
Excellent photo. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteTwo 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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