Suspected Asteroid Collision Leaves Odd X-Pattern of Trailing Debris. El Telescopio "Hubble"captó esta rara fotografía de una probable colisión cósmica. Fuente: NASA.Se especula que hubo una colisión de asteroides que ocurrió a una velocidad de 11,000 millas por hora ( 20,000 kilómetros).
Explicación:
El Telescopio Espacial "Hubble" detectó una miseriosa estela de escombros cósmicos que sugieren una colisión frontal de un asteroide con otro cuerpo, así lo informó la NASA.
Aunque se cree que todos los asteroides son producto de choques de ese tipo , hasta ahora nunca se habían captado los restos de uno de ellos, informó la NASA.
El impacto de los asteroides ocurrió a una velocidad de 20,000 kilómetros por hora ( cinco veces la velocidad de una balade rifle) .
El asteroide , similar a un cometa , ha sido identificado como : P/2010 A2, y fue descubierto el pasado 6 de enero . Las últimas imagénes transmitidas por el Telescopio "Hubble"la semana pasada muestran lo que la NASA calificó como un complicado patrón de estructuras filamentosas cerca del núcleo.
"Estos filamentos están formados por polvo y pequeñas rocas , probablemente desprendidas del núcleo", indicó David Jewitt, científico de la Universidad de California.
En general los cometas provienen de las frías regiones del Cinturón de Kuiper y, cuando se adentran en el sistema solar , el hielo de su superficie se evapora y comienza a desprenderse material de su núcleo.
Sin embargo, es posible que el P/2010 A2 tenga un origen diferente porque su órbita se ubica en regiones del cinturón en el que sus vecinos más cercanos son cuerpos rocosos que carecen de materiales volátiles, señaló el comunicado de la NASA.
Esto sugiere que la estela de escombros que le sigue sea resultado del impacto de dos cuerpos y no hielo que se evapora desde el núcleo, añadió.
"Si esta interpretación es correcta , es posible que hayan chocado dos pequeños asteroides hasta ahora desconocidos , los cuales crearon una estela de escombros", dijo Jewitt.
En el momento en que fue detectado por el Telescopio "Hubble", el P/2010 A2 se encontraba a unos 280 millones de kilómetros del Sol , y a unos 150 millones de kilómetros de la Tierra.
Uno de los fragmentos como esta colisión cósmica pueden haber chocado con la tierra hace unos 65 millones de años, lo originó la extinción de los dinosaurios, sin embargo nada se puede asegurar hasta la fecha , por que nunca se captó algo parecido ...." en el acto.."
Versión de la NASA
In English:
Suspected Asteroid Collision Leaves Odd X-Pattern of Trailing Debris:
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has observed a mysterious X-shaped debris pattern and trailing streamers of dust that suggest a head-on collision between two asteroids. Astronomers have long thought the asteroid belt is being ground down through collisions, but such a smashup has never been seen before.
Asteroid collisions are energetic, with an average impact speed of more than 11,000 miles per hour, or five times faster than a rifle bullet. The comet-like object imaged by Hubble, called P/2010 A2, was first discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research, or LINEAR, program sky survey on Jan. 6. New Hubble images taken on Jan. 25 and 29 show a complex X-pattern of filamentary structures near the nucleus.
"This is quite different from the smooth dust envelopes of normal comets," said principal investigator David Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles. "The filaments are made of dust and gravel, presumably recently thrown out of the nucleus. Some are swept back by radiation pressure from sunlight to create straight dust streaks. Embedded in the filaments are co-moving blobs of dust that likely originated from tiny unseen parent bodies."
Hubble shows the main nucleus of P/2010 A2 lies outside its own halo of dust. This has never been seen before in a comet-like object. The nucleus is estimated to be 460 feet in diameter.
Normal comets fall into the inner regions of the solar system from icy reservoirs in the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud. As comets near the sun and warm up, ice near the surface vaporizes and ejects material from the solid comet nucleus via jets. But P/2010 A2 may have a different origin. It orbits in the warm, inner regions of the asteroid belt where its nearest neighbors are dry rocky bodies lacking volatile materials.
This leaves open the possibility that the complex debris tail is the result of an impact between two bodies, rather than ice simply melting from a parent body.
"If this interpretation is correct, two small and previously unknown asteroids recently collided, creating a shower of debris that is being swept back into a tail from the collision site by the pressure of sunlight," Jewitt said.
The main nucleus of P/2010 A2 would be the surviving remnant of this so-called hypervelocity collision.
"The filamentary appearance of P/2010 A2 is different from anything seen in Hubble images of normal comets, consistent with the action of a different process," Jewitt said. An impact origin also would be consistent with the absence of gas in spectra recorded using ground-based telescopes.
The asteroid belt contains abundant evidence of ancient collisions that have shattered precursor bodies into fragments. The orbit of P/2010 A2 is consistent with membership in the Flora asteroid family, produced by collisional shattering more than 100 million years ago. One fragment of that ancient smashup may have struck Earth 65 million years ago, triggering a mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs. But, until now, no such asteroid-asteroid collision has been caught "in the act."
At the time of the Hubble observations, the object was approximately 180 million miles from the sun and 90 million miles from Earth. The Hubble images were recorded with the new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute conducts Hubble science operations. The institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. in Washington, D.C.
Fuente de información: NASA.
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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dime Guillermo, si viene un asteroide a La Tierra, así nos haría añicos????????
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