Hubble Captures Images of Possible Asteroid Collision
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured the first snapshots of a suspected asteroid collision. The images show a bizarre X-shaped object at the head of a comet-like trail of material. Astronomers used Hubble to track the object for the last five months. They thought they had witnessed a fresh asteroid collision, but were surprised to learn the collision occurred in early 2009. Catching colliding asteroids is difficult because large impacts are rare while small ones, such as this latest one that is about 400 feet wide, are exceedingly faint.
Comments:
Considering the vastness of space, for us to witness an asteroid collision with another asteroid seems about a billion times more unlikely than winning the lottery...
<br>Mark:<br><br>On a related note - Regarding the probability of collisions in space - With all of the satellites and other space junk we have orbiting the Earth, it was not until 2009, 52 years after the first satellite was launched, that two satellites actually collided.<br><br>http://www.astromart.com/news/news.asp?news_id=904<br><br>Guy<br><br><br><blockquote class="blockquote"><div class="italic"><i>Mark Bender said:</i><br><br>Considering the vastness of space, for us to witness an asteroid collision with another asteroid seems about a billion times more unlikely than winning the lottery...</div></blockquote>
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