Archivo de imágenes de Hubble

Hubble observa las consecuencias de la presunta colisión de asteroides

This is a Hubble Space Telescope picture of asteroid (596) Scheila, as observed on Dec. 27, 2010. The visible-light image was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 when the asteroid was approximately 217 million miles away. The asteroid is surrounded by a C-shaped cloud, or com...

Fecha
Jan 1, 2011
Misión
Hubble Space Telescope
ID de archivo
hubblesite-images-2011-13-2840-image
Por

This is a Hubble Space Telescope picture of asteroid (596) Scheila, as observed on Dec. 27, 2010. The visible-light image was taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 when the asteroid was approximately 217 million miles away. The asteroid is surrounded by a C-shaped cloud, or coma, of dust particles. A linear tail of dust can also be seen streaming behind the asteroid. The asteroid body, which is approximately 70 miles across, appears star-like because it is overexposed so that the faint dust can be imaged.

A second Hubble observation on Jan. 4, 2011, showed that the dusty coma had faded by 30 percent. These data are consistent with the idea that Hubble is observing the aftermath of a collision between Scheila and a much smaller body that blasted debris from the surface. This would be the second time a collision between two asteroids has been witnessed.

Credits

NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA), and M. Mutchler (STScI)

Detalles de la imagen

About The Object
Object NameAsteroid (596) Scheila
Object DescriptionMain-Belt Comet/Asteroid
DistanceScheila’s orbit lies in the outer asteroid belt at a semi-major axis of 2.926 AU from the Sun. During the time of the Hubble observations, the asteroid was ~3.1 AU from the Sun, and ~2.3 AU from Earth.
DimensionsThe image is 2.2 arcminutes (133,000 mi or 214,000 km) wide.
About The Data
Data DescriptionThe image was created from Hubble data from proposal HST proposal : D. Jewitt (University of California, Los Angeles), H. Weaver (JHU/APL), M. Mutchler (STScI), S. Larson (University of Arizona), and J. Agarwal (ESA/ESTEC, University of Potsdam).
InstrumentHST>WFC3/UVIS
Exposure DatesDecember 27, 2010, Exposure Time: 26 minutes
FiltersF606W (V)
About The Image
Color InfoThis image was originally black and white and recorded only overall brightness. These brightness values were translated into a range of bluish hues. Such color "maps" can be useful in helping to distinguish subtly varying brightness in an image.

Fuentes preferidas de Google

Descubre más de Space Telescope en Google

Elige Space Telescope como fuente preferida para encontrar más fácilmente nuestras noticias de misiones, reportajes visuales y explicaciones independientes en Google.