The Hubble Space Telscope captures aftermath of asteroid collision in this series of photos taken between January and May 2010. The images show the object P/2010 A2, an X-shaped objected created by two colliding asteroids. ...
Astronomers now have the first confirmed snapshots of what appears to be the aftermath of an asteroid collision in space.
When scientists first discovered the object dubbed P/2010 A2 in the asteroid belt in January using the Rosetta spacecraft, the fact that it trailed a tail made them think it was a comet. A closer look, however, suggested it was something more peculiar — images from the Hubble Space Telescope revealed it had a bizarre X-shape nucleus, for instance. ...
"When I saw the Hubble image I knew it was something special," said researcher Jessica Agarwal, a European Space Agency astronomer in the Netherlands.Astronomers suspect a rock maybe 10-16 feet (3-5 meters) wide slammed into a larger asteroid at speeds of about 11,200 mph (18,000 kph) with a detonation as powerful as a small atomic bomb, said researcher David Jewitt, an astronomer at the University of California in Los Angeles and leader of the Hubble observations.
"We have directly observed a collision between asteroids for the first time, instead of having to infer that they happened from million-year-old remains," researcher Colin Snodgrass, a planetary scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, told SPACE.com.
The smaller asteroid was vaporized, stripping material from the larger one. Pressure from solar radiation then swept the debris behind the remnant asteroid, forming a comet-like tail. ...
via SPACE.com -- 'X' Marks the Spot: Hubble Reveals Collision Between Asteroids.
It's a Xenoroid. I don't know.... I still think it looks like some kind of alien ship.
1 comment:
I think you may have something there Xeno. Aliens do seem to be incredibly careless. If they can crash into earth, it seems reasonable to assume they can also crash in to asteroids.
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