Hubble spotted a comet in the midst of disintegrating, and it’s stunning

[Mike Wehner]

• The Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of a comet in the midst of fragmentation.
• Observations of comets as they break up are incredibly rare, and scientists are eager to study and compare the Hubble images in order to learn more about how the process unfolds.
• The comet, C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) was only just spotted in late 2019, so scientists seem to have caught it just in time to see it crumble.
• Visit BGR's homepage for more stories.

The Hubble Space Telescope, an aging workhorse for NASA and the European Space Agency, is great at capturing images of distance features of our galaxy and even other galaxies, but that doesn't mean it's always looking to the horizon for objects of interest. As evidence of that, the telescope just spotted something pretty special right here in our neck of the woods.

Comet C/2019 (ATLAS) is breaking up. Scientists haven't had long to study the comet, as it was discovered in December 2019, but as a new set of Hubble images reveals, it's now breaking up right before our very eyes.

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Hubble spotted a comet in the midst of disintegrating, and it’s stunning originally appeared on BGR.com on Thu, 30 Apr 2020 at 15:44:48 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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