Suspected asteroid collision. Space telescope image of the comet-like object P/2010 A2 (white speck,lower left) with a mysterious X-shaped debris pattern and trailing streamers of dust that suggest a head-on collision between two asteroids. The most likely interpretation of this data suggests that two small and previously unknown asteroids recently collided,creating a shower of debris that is being swept back into a tail from the collision site by the pressure of sunlight. The main nucleus of P/2010 A2 would be the surviving remnant of this so-called hypervelocity collision. Imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) | |
Lizenzart: | Lizenzpflichtig |
Credit: | Science Photo Library / NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (University of California, Los Angeles) |
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