Star Trek

This image was recently taken.

By Hubble if I read rightly.  

It's an X-File.

Never heard how far away it was from Earth.

Quote (norwegian @ Feb. 08 2010, 9:42 am)

Never heard how far away it was from Earth.

Relatively close .... ie inside the solar system.

Kolvoord starburst

Quote (Somerled_ex_Siistertrek @ Feb. 09 2010, 7:00 am)

Quote (norwegian @ Feb. 08 2010, 9:42 am) Never heard how far away it was from Earth. Relatively close .... ie inside the solar system.

From The New Scientist website:

The mystery of a comet-like object circling among the main-belt asteroids has deepened, now that astronomers have slewed the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) over for a close-up look.

The release of a Hubble image taken on 29 January shows that this object, called P/2010 A2, is no normal comet. There's a strange X-shape feature at its brightest end (I hesitate to call it a "nucleus") that defies easy explanation. "This is quite different from the smooth dust envelopes of normal comets," explains David Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles, who led the Hubble effort. The Hubble view also clearly shows a point-like object hovering nearby, about 1600 kilometres from the "X" and seemingly connected to it by a thread of material.

Comets within the asteroid belt aren't unprecedented. Jewitt's website comments that four others are known. Most notable among these is 133P/Elst-Pizarro, first spotted as an asteroid in 1979 and then found to have a cometary appearance in 1996.
Fast-spinning asteroid?

But apart from its long tail of debris, P/2010 A2 doesn't look much like a comet, at least in the HST images taken on January 25th and 29th. Moreover, it lacks the emissions that are usually found in a comet's coma and tail. "No gas yet," Jewitt told me, "but we are still looking." Unfortunately, a request to observe this curiosity with the Spitzer Space Telescope was turned down.

The most likely explanation for this object's sudden appearance is that a pair of small, unseen asteroids collided, creating the trail of debris first spotted on January 6th by the LINEAR telescope in New Mexico.

So would a smashup involving two main-belt asteroids result in something like this? Perhaps. "Bill Bottke and I are thinking about what kind of modelling would be useful to do with this object," notes David Nesvorny of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, "but we have nothing definitive so far". Bottke notes that while a collision seems plausible, it's also possible we are witnessing an asteroid that has been spun up (by gradual interactions with sunlight) to the point that it started shedding mass.

Jewitt says that there's no handle yet on whether the "nucleus" is tumbling or spinning rapidly. But he says more Hubble sessions are planned in the months ahead.

Quote (Somerled_ex_Siistertrek @ Feb. 08 2010, 7:49 am)

This image was recently taken.

It's the mothership!

Quote (apothecary @ Feb. 08 2010, 9:21 pm)

Quote (Somerled_ex_Siistertrek @ Feb. 09 2010, 7:00 am) Quote (norwegian @ Feb. 08 2010, 9:42 am) Never heard how far away it was from Earth. Relatively close .... ie inside the solar system. From The New Scientist website: The mystery of a comet-like object circling among the main-belt asteroids has deepened, now that astronomers have slewed the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) over for a close-up look. The release of a Hubble image taken on 29 January shows that this object, called P/2010 A2, is no normal comet. There's a strange X-shape feature at its brightest end (I hesitate to call it a "nucleus") that defies easy explanation. "This is quite different from the smooth dust envelopes of normal comets," explains David Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles, who led the Hubble effort. The Hubble view also clearly shows a point-like object hovering nearby, about 1600 kilometres from the "X" and seemingly connected to it by a thread of material. Comets within the asteroid belt aren't unprecedented. Jewitt's website comments that four others are known. Most notable among these is 133P/Elst-Pizarro, first spotted as an asteroid in 1979 and then found to have a cometary appearance in 1996. Fast-spinning asteroid? But apart from its long tail of debris, P/2010 A2 doesn't look much like a comet, at least in the HST images taken on January 25th and 29th. Moreover, it lacks the emissions that are usually found in a comet's coma and tail. "No gas yet," Jewitt told me, "but we are still looking." Unfortunately, a request to observe this curiosity with the Spitzer Space Telescope was turned down. The most likely explanation for this object's sudden appearance is that a pair of small, unseen asteroids collided, creating the trail of debris first spotted on January 6th by the LINEAR telescope in New Mexico. So would a smashup involving two main-belt asteroids result in something like this? Perhaps. "Bill Bottke and I are thinking about what kind of modelling would be useful to do with this object," notes David Nesvorny of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, "but we have nothing definitive so far". Bottke notes that while a collision seems plausible, it's also possible we are witnessing an asteroid that has been spun up (by gradual interactions with sunlight) to the point that it started shedding mass. Jewitt says that there's no handle yet on whether the "nucleus" is tumbling or spinning rapidly. But he says more Hubble sessions are planned in the months ahead.

You win .... nice to see another person here who reads New Scientist.

Quote (Somerled_ex_Siistertrek @ Feb. 09 2010, 3:49 am)

This image was recently taken.

looks like salt or sugar on black velvet. On Earth.

Quote (Beccs_ @ Feb. 08 2010, 9:23 pm)

Quote (Somerled_ex_Siistertrek @ Feb. 08 2010, 7:49 am) This image was recently taken. It's the mothership!

Someone needs to tell him that foil on the head is ineffective .... you need to wrap coax cable about the head to stop them from controlling your thoughts or reading your brain. ... it will keep the head cool and stop sun burn if you are bald (which he is BTW). ? .. this is BASIC ELECTROMAGNETISM and ANTENNA THEORY , anyone who has studied 2nd year undergraduate physics knows this stuff.

It's Worf's head.

Well, it's pretty clear that it's the cylon basestar that left Earth once the colonials settled the planet.  It must have come back and been disgarded, and now it travels the solar system as a comet.  Seems pretty obvious really.  

whatever it is, it's after me lucky charms!

It's the talons of a bird of prey.