{"id":391759,"date":"2026-03-18T17:19:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T17:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/391759\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T17:19:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T17:19:16","slug":"nasas-hubble-unexpectedly-catches-comet-breaking-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/391759\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Hubble Unexpectedly Catches Comet Breaking Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a happy twist of fate, NASA\u2019s Hubble Space Telescope<\/a> just witnessed a comet in the act of breaking apart. The chance of that happening while Hubble watched is extraordinarily minuscule. The findings published Wednesday in the journal Icarus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The comet K1, whose full name is C\/2025 K1 (ATLAS)\u2014not to be confused with interstellar comet 3I\/ATLAS\u2014was not the original target of the Hubble study.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes the best science happens by accident,\u201d said co-investigator John Noonan, a research professor in the Department of Physics<\/a> at Auburn University in Alabama. \u201cThis comet got observed because our original comet was not viewable due to some new technical constraints after we won our proposal. We had to find a new target\u2014and right when we observed it, it happened to break apart, which is the slimmest of slim chances.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

This series of images from NASA\u2019s Hubble Space Telescope of the fragmenting comet C\/2025 K1 (ATLAS) was taken over the course of three consecutive days: Nov. 8, 9, and 10, 2025. This is the first time Hubble has witnessed a comet so early in the process of breaking up.<\/p>\n

Image: NASA, ESA, Dennis Bodewits (AU); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)<\/p>\n

Noonan didn\u2019t know K1 was fragmenting until he viewed the images the day after Hubble took them. \u201cWhile I was taking an initial look at the data, I saw that there were four comets in those images when we only proposed to look at one,\u201d said Noonan. \u201cSo we knew this was something really, really special.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is an experiment the researchers always wanted to do with Hubble. They had proposed many Hubble observations to catch a comet breaking up. Unfortunately, these are very difficult to schedule, and they were never successful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe irony is now we’re just studying a regular comet and it crumbles in front of our eyes,\u201d said principal investigator Dennis Bodewits, also a professor in Auburn University\u2019s Department of Physics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cComets are leftovers of the era of solar system formation, so they\u2019re made of \u2018old stuff\u2019\u2014the primordial materials that made our solar system,\u201d said Bodewits. \u201cBut they are not pristine\u2014they’ve been heated; they’ve been irradiated by the Sun and by cosmic rays. So, when looking at a comet\u2019s composition, the question we always have is, \u2018Is this a primitive property or is this due to evolution?\u2019 By cracking open a comet, you can see the ancient material that has not been processed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hubble caught K1 fragmenting into at least four pieces, each with a distinct coma, the fuzzy envelope of gas and dust that surrounds a comet\u2019s icy nucleus. Hubble cleanly resolved the fragments, but to ground-based telescopes, at the time they only appeared as barely distinguishable, bright blobs.<\/p>\n

Hubble\u2019s images were taken just a month after K1\u2019s closest approach to the Sun, called perihelion. The comet\u2019s perihelion was inside Mercury\u2019s orbit, about one-third the distance of the Earth from the Sun. During perihelion, a comet experiences its most intense heating and maximum stress. Just past perihelion is when some long-period comets<\/a> like K1 tend to fall apart.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Diagram<\/p>\n

This diagram shows the path Comet C\/2025 K1 (ATLAS), or K1, took as it swung past the Sun and began its journey out of the solar system. NASA\u2019s Hubble Space Telescope captured the inset image of the fragmenting comet just a month after K1\u2019s closest approach to the Sun.<\/p>\n

Illustration: NASA, ESA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)<\/p>\n

Before it fragmented, K1 was likely a bit larger than an average comet, probably around 5 miles across. The team estimates the comet began to disintegrate eight days before Hubble viewed it. Hubble took three 20-second images, one on each day from Nov. 8 through Nov. 10, 2025. As it watched the comet, one of K1\u2019s smaller pieces also broke up.<\/p>\n

Because Hubble\u2019s sharp vision can distinguish extremely fine details, the team could trace the history of the fragments back to when they were one piece. That allowed them to reconstruct the timeline. But in doing so, they uncovered a mystery: Why was there a delay between when the comet broke up and when bright outbursts were seen from the ground? When the comet fragmented and exposed fresh ice, why didn\u2019t it brighten almost instantaneously?<\/p>\n

The team has some theories. Most of a comet\u2019s brightness is sunlight reflected off of dust grains. But when a comet cracks open, it reveals pure ice. Maybe a layer of dry dust needs to form over the pure ice and then blow off. Or maybe heat needs to get below the surface, build up pressure, and then eject an expanding shell of dust.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNever before has Hubble caught a fragmenting comet this close to when it actually fell apart. Most of the time, it’s a few weeks to a month later. And in this case, we were able to see it just days after,\u201d said Noonan. \u201cThis is telling us something very important about the physics of what’s happening at the comet\u2019s surface. We may be seeing the timescale it takes to form a substantial dust layer that can then be ejected by the gas.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center; Lead Producer: Paul Morris<\/p>\n

The research team is looking forward to finishing the analysis of the gases to come from the comet. Already, ground-based analysis shows that K1 is chemically very strange\u2014it is significantly depleted in carbon, compared with other comets. Spectroscopic analysis from Hubble\u2019s STIS (Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph<\/a>) and COS (Cosmic Origins Spectrograph<\/a>) instruments is likely to reveal much more about the composition of K1 and the very origins of our solar system, as NASA\u2019s space telescopes continue to contribute to our understanding of planetary science.<\/p>\n

The comet K1 is now a collection of fragments about 250 million miles from Earth. Located in the constellation Pisces, it is heading out of the solar system, not likely to ever return.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.<\/p>\n

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