Something We’ve Never Seen Before
February 2nd, 2010
What the hell is that? It looks like a comet, doesn’t it? But it’s not. Spectral analysis of the tail shows that it’s not gas and orbital analysis says it’s connected to the Flora family of near Earth asteroids. What you’re looking at here is most likely a very recent asteroid impact with the debris trailing off, driven by the solar wind. Initially the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) sky survey discovered the unusual site and then Hubble was pointed at it to reveal the detail you see above.
This is pretty amazing and the very first time we have witnessed an asteroid collision!
Read more at the Hubble website…