NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope Gives Us A Glimpse Of A Disintegrating Comet

Hubble Space Telescope was able to capture some sharp and detailed observations of a disintegrating comet that occurred at a distance of about 67 million miles from Earth. The observations may imply that the 4.5-billion-year-old comet, 332P/Ikeya-Murakami has a rotation so fast that materials are being ejected from its surface. The thrown out debris are now scattered along a 3,000-mile-long length much larger than the width of continental U.S.

According to a recent news release on the official website, a series of images were taken by Hubble over a three-day period in January, revealing 25 building-size blocks made up of a mixture of ice and dust that seem to be drifting away from the comet at a leisurely pace.

These observations provide information about the unpredictable behavior of comets, which approach the sun and begin to vaporize, releasing dynamical forces. Comet 332P was a bit beyond the orbit of Mars, about 150 million miles from sun, when Hubble spotted the breakup, reports NASA's official website.

"We know that comets disintegrate sometimes, but we don't know much about how or why they come apart," explains David Jewitt, lead researcher of the University of California. "The trouble is that it happens very quickly and without a warning, so we don't have that much chance to get useful data." He also added that using Hubble's amazing resolution, not only can we see really tiny bits of the comet, but we can also watch them change from day to day.

The three-day observations tell that the comets pieces brighten and dim alternately as the icy patches on their surfaces rotate into and out of the sunlight. Their shapes also change as they break apart from the comet. The comet is also much smaller measuring only 1,600 feet across, than what astronomers earlier thought.

Comet 332P was discovered by two Japanese amateur astronomers, Kaoru Ikeya and Shigeki Murakami in November 2010, after it surged in brightness. Based on the data sent by Hubble, the researchers suggest that sunlight must have heated up the comet, leading to jets of gas and dust to erupt from its surface. As the nucleus is very small, these jets tend to act like rocket engines, increasing the comet's rotation. This faster spin rate loosens chunks of material from the comet, which are now drifting off into space.

The researchers also estimate that Comet 332P still contains enough mass to undergo another 25 outbursts. Earlier as the comet travelled across our solar system, it got deflected by the planets, until Jupiter's gravity set its current orbit. Jewitt estimates that a comet from the Kuiper belt gets thrown into the inner part of the solar system in 40 or a +100 years. The results are to appear in the Sept. 2016 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.