Archivo de imágenes de Hubble
Asteroide (6478) Gault
Hubble Witnesses Asteroid Coming UngluedThis Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the gradual self-destruction of an asteroid, whose ejected dusty material has formed two long, thin, comet-like tails. The longer tail stretches more than 500,000 miles (800,000 kilometers) and is r...
- Fecha
- Jan 1, 2019
- Misión
- Hubble Space Telescope
- ID de archivo
- hubblesite-images-2019-22-4379-image
Hubble Witnesses Asteroid Coming Unglued
This Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the gradual self-destruction of an asteroid, whose ejected dusty material has formed two long, thin, comet-like tails. The longer tail stretches more than 500,000 miles (800,000 kilometers) and is roughly 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) wide. The shorter tail is about a quarter as long. The streamers will eventually disperse into space.
These unusual, transient features are evidence that the asteroid, known as (6478) Gault, is beginning to come apart by gently puffing off material in two separate episodes. Hubble's sharp view reveals that the tails are narrow streamers, suggesting that the dust was released in short bursts, lasting anywhere from a few hours to a few days.
The first tail was spotted on Jan. 5, 2019; the second in mid-January. An analysis of both tails suggests the two dust releases occurred around Oct. 28 and Dec. 30, 2018.
Astronomers think the tiny asteroid, only 2.5 miles wide, is disintegrating due to the long-term subtle effects of sunlight, which can slowly speed up its spin until it begins to shed material. In fact, the self-destruction may have been started more than 100 million years ago. Pressure from sunlight very slowly began spinning up the diminutive asteroid at an estimated rate of 1 second every 10,000 years.
The asteroid is located 214 million miles from the Sun, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Credits
NASA, ESA, K. Meech and J. Kleyna (University of Hawaii), and O. Hainaut (European Southern Observatory)Detalles de la imagen
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Asteroid (6478) Gault |
| Object Description | Asteroid |
| Distance | At the time of the Hubble observations in February 2019, Asteroid Gault was 1.5 astronomical units (139 million miles) from Earth and 2.4 astronomical units (223 million miles) from the Sun. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The image was created from Hubble data from proposal (K. Meech) |
| Instrument | WFC3/UVIS |
| Exposure Dates | 05 Feb 2019 |
| Filters | F350LP |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | These images are a composite of separate exposures acquired by the WFC3 instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. The color results from assigning the color blue to a monochromatic (grayscale) image. |
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Ver en NASA.gov