Was All That Debris an Asteroid Collision?
Posted in: NASA, science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
Last month, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged a mysterious X-shaped debris pattern with a dust and gravel trail. NASA scientists now believe that the image showed the immediate aftermath of an extremely rare event, according to Popular Science: two small asteroids colliding.
The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research program first discovered the “object,” which is about 90 million miles from Earth (nearly the same distance away as the Sun). Hubble’s new Wide Field Camera 3 picked up the image, which scientists initially thought was a comet–except that the debris tail is much rougher than a comet’s usual smooth dust envelope, the report said.
If true, the asteroid crash occurred at about 11,000 miles per hour, or five times the speed of a rifle shot, according to researchers. Holy smokes. (Image credit: NASA)
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