The Hubble Space Telescope imaged (596) Scheila on Dec. 27, 2010, when the asteroid was about 218 million miles away. Scheila is overexposed in this image to reveal the faint dust features. Because Hubble tracked the asteroid during the exposure, the star images are trailed.
CREDIT: NASA/ESA/D. Jewitt (UCLA)
The strange metamorphosis astronomers observed in an asteroid late last year was likely caused by a collision with another space rock, according to two new studies.
In December 2010, astronomers noticed that an asteroid named (596) Scheila had brightened unexpectedly. Not only that, the space rock was sporting some new and short-lived dust plumes. These changes were probably brought on by a smashup with a smaller asteroid, according to the studies, which were based on observations made by NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes.
"Collisions between asteroids create rock fragments, from fine dust to huge boulders, that impact planets and their moons," said Dennis Bodewits of the University of Maryland, lead author of the Spitzer study. "Yet this is the first time we've been able to catch one just weeks after the smashup, long before the evidence fades away."
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