WHAT A PRETTY COMET! OH, WAIT, THAT'S AN ASTEROID

Hey Space Placers!

Comet or asteroid?

This Hubble Space Telescope image reveals the gradual self-destruction of an asteroid, whose ejected dusty material has formed two long, thin, comet-like tails. The longer tail stretches more than 500,000 miles (800,000 kilometers) and is roughly 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) wide. The shorter tail is about a quarter as long. The streamers will eventually disperse into space.

Credits: NASA, ESA, K. Meech and J. Kleyna (University of Hawaii), and O. Hainaut (European Southern Observatory)

If we saw this in the sky odds are we would all think it is a comet and its tail.

But that is not the case.....it is an asteroid in the process of gradual self-destruction!

Read the story behind the stunning image.

All of that debris will become part of the dust in the solar system that I blogged about yesterday,

Sky Guy in the Atlantic