Inbox Astronomy: NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Hubble Unexpectedly Catches Comet Breaking Up

INBOX ASTRONOMY

NASA’s Hubble Unexpectedly Catches Comet Breaking Up

Release date: Wednesday, March 18, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Researchers’ long-sought experiment happened serendipitously.

When scientists recently trained the Hubble Space Telescope on a comet, they got much more of a show than they expected—the comet was crumbling before their eyes! Comet K1, whose full name is Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), had just passed its closest approach to the Sun and was heading out of the solar system. Though it had been intact just days before, K1 fragmented into at least four pieces while Hubble was watching. The odds of that happening while Hubble viewed the comet are extraordinarily low.

Each piece looked like a tiny comet, with a fuzzy envelope of gas and dust surrounding it. From its perch in space, Hubble clearly resolved the fragments, though from the ground they appeared only as barely distinguishable blobs. 

  Read more  

Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach