Suspected asteroid collision. Space telescope image of the comet-like object P/2010 A2 (white speck, lower left) with a mysterious X-shaped debris pat

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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).

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Size: 3596px × 2445px
Photo credit: © NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (University of California, Los Angeles)/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: -, -shaped, /2010, 3, a2, asteroid, asteroids, astronomical, astronomy, astrophysical, astrophysics, camera, collision, comet, comet-, cometary, debris, dust, field, head-, hst, hubble, image, impact, nucleus, observation, pattern, remains, remnant, remnants, space, streamer, streamers, tail, telescope, wfc3, wide