"The X marks the spot of a suspected head-on collision between two asteroids imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope’s new-and-improved Wide Field Camera.
If it’s confirmed by further observations, it would be the first time that scientists have detected the interplanetary collision between objects in the asteroid belt, though they believe that such occurrences are common.
The complex structure of the debris is what makes astronomers think they may be seeing something new around the sun. The main nucleus of the object, P/2010 A2, is actually located outside its dust halo, something that’s never been seen in a comet-like object before.
“The filamentary appearance of P/2010 A2 is different from anything seen in Hubble images of normal comets, consistent with the action of a different process,” said David Jewitt, an astronomer at the University of California Los Angeles, in a press release.
They hypothesize that the filaments are made up of dust and gravel created by a high speed impact that could have occurred at 11,000 miles per hour.
“If this interpretation is correct, 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,” Jewitt said.
Image: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt."
Read more at http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/02/hubble-asteroid-crash/#ixzz0eWdWe9O7
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