NASA's Hubble Unexpectedly Catches Comet Breaking Up (phys.org) 16
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope unexpectedly captured a rare, early-stage breakup of comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) just days after it first began disintegrating. Phys.org reports: "Sometimes the best science happens by accident," said co-investigator John Noonan, a research professor in the Department of Physics at Auburn University in Alabama. "This comet got observed because our original comet was not viewable due to some new technical constraints after we won our proposal. We had to find a new target -- and right when we observed it, it happened to break apart, which is the slimmest of slim chances."
Noonan didn't know K1 was fragmenting until he viewed the images the day after Hubble took them. "While I was taking an initial look at the data, I saw that there were four comets in those images when we only proposed to look at one," said Noonan. "So we knew this was something really, really special." Hubble caught K1 fragmenting into at least four pieces, each with a distinct coma, the fuzzy envelope of gas and dust that surrounds a comet's icy nucleus. Hubble cleanly resolved the fragments, but to ground-based telescopes, at the time they only appeared as barely distinguishable, bright blobs. [...]
"Never before has Hubble caught a fragmenting comet this close to when it actually fell apart. Most of the time, it's a few weeks to a month later. And in this case, we were able to see it just days after," said Noonan. "This is telling us something very important about the physics of what's happening at the comet's surface. We may be seeing the timescale it takes to form a substantial dust layer that can then be ejected by the gas." The findings have been published in the journal Icarus.
Noonan didn't know K1 was fragmenting until he viewed the images the day after Hubble took them. "While I was taking an initial look at the data, I saw that there were four comets in those images when we only proposed to look at one," said Noonan. "So we knew this was something really, really special." Hubble caught K1 fragmenting into at least four pieces, each with a distinct coma, the fuzzy envelope of gas and dust that surrounds a comet's icy nucleus. Hubble cleanly resolved the fragments, but to ground-based telescopes, at the time they only appeared as barely distinguishable, bright blobs. [...]
"Never before has Hubble caught a fragmenting comet this close to when it actually fell apart. Most of the time, it's a few weeks to a month later. And in this case, we were able to see it just days after," said Noonan. "This is telling us something very important about the physics of what's happening at the comet's surface. We may be seeing the timescale it takes to form a substantial dust layer that can then be ejected by the gas." The findings have been published in the journal Icarus.
Too bad (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Didn't that twat running DOGE sack all the Engineers?
Re: (Score:2)
SpaceX probably hired all the good ones (Blue Origin as well). That's SOP for most regulated industries and suppliers. Kill the customer's funding in Congress and hire all the good people away. Leave the knuckle-draggers behind to do "oversight" of stuff they barely comprehend, so they don't mess with you too much.
Chuck Norris RIP (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Fuck off with that shit, idiot.
Speaking of which, Chuck Norris doesn't flush the toilet - he scares the shit out of it.
That's actually cool (Score:3)
News for space nerds that matter!
Catching a comet (Score:2)
Is probably not a good idea...
"I just think..." (Score:2)
"...we should start seeing other asteroids."
I Got Headline Scared (Score:1)
I thought the title was saying that Hubble was destroyed by a comet, which bummed me out, glad its still up!
Lack of information.... (Score:2)
I'm assuming that, on a cosmic time scale, the fragments will re-coalesce under their own gravity?
Re: (Score:2)
That's unlikely, the gravity of small objects like that tends to be low enough that pressure from the solar wind and jets of vented gas will separate them. The four pieces will undoubtedly be of different sizes and albedo, so will receive different amounts of force from the sun.