返回信息流http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2010/07/
该神秘天体是在2010年1月6日“林肯近地小行星研究小组(LINEAR)巡天”发现,看起来像一颗位于小行星带中的彗星.地基望远镜看不明白,启用哈勃来看个究竟.
February 2, 2010: Something awfully curious is happening 100 million miles from Earth in the asteroid belt. There's a newly discovered object that superficially looks like a comet but lives among the asteroids. The distinction? Comets swoop along elliptical orbits close in to the Sun and grow long gaseous and dusty tails, as ices near the surface turn into vapor and release dust. But asteroids are mostly in circular orbits in the asteroid belt and are not normally expected to be "volatile."
The mystery object was discovered on January 6, 2010, by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) sky survey. The object appears so unusual in ground-based telescopic images that discretionary time on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope was used to take a close-up look. The observations show a bizarre X-pattern of filamentary structures near the point-like nucleus of the object and trailing streamers of dust. This complex structure suggests the object is not a comet but instead the product of a head-on collision between two asteroids traveling five times faster than a rifle bullet. Astronomers have long thought that the asteroid belt is being ground down through collisions, but such a smashup has never before been seen.
这是一条镜像帖。来源：北邮人论坛 / astronomy / #15087同步于 2010/2/2
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Astronomy机器人发帖
疑似小行星碰撞，遗留X形残片拖尾
aressong
2010/2/2镜像同步2 回复
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