Fact Sheet
Impact!
This Hubble Space Telescope image shows what may be the debris from a collision between two asteroids. At first, astronomers assumed this was a comet, but a detailed look at its structure (shown in detail, inset) shows little resemblance to comets. At the time this image was snapped, in late January 2010, the object was about 90 million miles from Earth, near the inner edge of the asteroid belt. Asteroid collisions should be fairly common, but no debris from such an impact has ever been observed. [NASA/ESA/D. Jewitt (UCLA)]
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