Comet Atlas Shatters as Hubble Looks On - Astronomy News with The Cosmic Companion
Hubble shows Comet Atlas breaking apart, as the comet dashes hopes for a spectacular show in May.
What could have been the greatest comet in a generation has shattered into numerous pieces. dashing hopes, and ending the life of this once-mighty iceberg in space.
By James Maynard
Just fragments of ice remain where the head of a once-mighty comet once raced around the Sun. This pair of images was recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope. Image credit: Hubble NASA ESA STSci D Jewitt (UCLA). Animation by The Cosmic Companion.
Comet Atlas was once shaping up to be the brightest comet seen from the northern hemisphere since comets Hale-Bopp and Hyakutake in the mid 1990’s. Now, the comet has completely broken up, shattering into dozens of massive pieces.
Fortunately, the Hubble Space Telescope trained its eye on the head of the comet on April 20 and the 23rd as the spaceborne iceberg broke apart. The first image showed 30 fragments where the nucleus (main body) of the comet should have been found. The second observation showed 25 pieces of ice and rock, each the size of a typical house or larger.
“Their appearance changes substantially between the two days, so much so that it’s quite difficult to connect the dots. I don’t know whether this is because the individual pieces are flashing on and off as they reflect sunlight, acting like twinkling lights on a Christmas tree, or because different fragments appear on different days,” said David Jewitt, professor of planetary science and astronomy at UCLA, leader of one of two teams that photographed the remains with Hubble.
Before it broke up, the comet (official name: C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS)) was thought to be as much as 200 meters (660 feet) in diameter.
Breaking Up is (Apparently) Easy to Do
Although this comet fell apart, the event still served to teach astronomers about a process they do not often see in such detail.
“This is really exciting — both because such events are super cool to watch and because they do not happen very often. Most comets that fragment are too dim to see. Events at such scale only happen once or twice a decade,” said Quanzhi Ye, astronomer at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Although astronomers are uncertain why the comet broke up, outgassing — the release of gas produced during the heating of the icy body as it approached the Sun — likely fragmented the body.
This could show that such ends are common for comets, and further study of the Hubble observations could reveal details of how that comet met its end.
Read more: https://bit.ly/Comet-Atlas-Shatters-Hubble-Watches
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