Is That A Freaky-looking Debris Cloud NASA is Depicting Or Is Today a Good Day To Die?

This object, which was first picked up by MIT’s LINEAR, was so incredible that it demanded a second look. NASA repositioned the Hubble and captured a beautiful shot of a debris cloud orbiting between Mars and Jupiter that bears more than a passing resemblance to a Klingon Bird of Prey.

As explained by NASA:

… what Hubble saw indicates that P/2010 A2 is unlike any object ever seen before. At first glance, the object appears to have the tail of a comet. Close inspection, however, shows a 140-meter nucleus offset from the tail center, very unusual structure near the nucleus, and no discernable gas in the tail. Knowing that the object orbits in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, a preliminary hypothesis that appears to explain all of the known clues is that P/2010 A2 is the debris left over from a recent collision between two small asteroids. If true, the collision likely occurred at over 15,000 kilometers per hour — five times the speed of a rifle bullet — and liberated energy in excess of a nuclear bomb.

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[NASA via DVICE]