Dying asteroid spotted by Hubble Space Telescope,says Indian-origin scientist

Trail of particles following asteroid stretch for million kilometres; may be due to collision with another asteroid.

A bizarre comet-like object,discovered by NASA8217;s Hubble Space Telescope three years ago,is actually a dying asteroid,an Indian-origin astronomer has said.

Hubble telescope observed the mysterious X-shaped debris pattern and trailing streamers of dust soaring through the asteroid belt in January 2010.

It was believed to be a comet,most notably because of its long,well-formed tail.

The trail of particles and dust following the asteroid stretch for more than a million kilometres,roughly three times the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

Now,scientists believe the odd,X-shaped debris field,may be evidence that the object,known as Asteroid P/2010 A2,collided head-on with another asteroid in the recent past.

Another theory is that A2 is breaking itself apart due to an unsustainable spin,Discovery News reported.

8220;It8217;s hard to pin it down. This one certainly looks like it8217;s a collision but there are many mechanisms that may explain it,8221; said astronomer Jayadev Rajagopal,with the National Optical Astronomy Observatory.

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8220;We are watching the death of an asteroid. This is the only one which is showing the event as it is happening,8221; Rajagopal told the American Astronomical Society conference in Indianapolis this week.

8220;We usually associate tails and coma and mass loss with comets. We think of them as dirty iceballs with mass kind of shedding off them. But there are a few asteroids which are starting to show us that asteroids have this activity too,8221; he said.

Follow-up observations are under way to measure how much material is in A28217;s tail,which presently is shaped like a tube. Eventually,the tail will widen and more closely resemble the dusty trails of comets that trigger meteor showers on Earth when the planet passes through the stream.

P/2010 A2 was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project,a collaboration of the US Air Force,NASA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Later,astronomer David Jewitt,with the University of California at Los Angeles,used Hubble to get a closer look at the object and determined that its tail wasn8217;t smooth like a comet8217;s.

A2 has now completed one orbit around the Sun. How long it lasts will depend on the size of its particles and how fast they are moving.

8220;I expect it to hang around for quite a while,8221; Rajagopal said. PTI RCL AKJ RCL 06051619