Watch: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captures rare proof of comet breaking apart
FOX Weather • • science
Key Points:
- NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured the rare event of comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) breaking into at least four pieces, surprising scientists who had to change their observation target due to technical constraints.
- The comet, originally about 5 miles across, began disintegrating approximately eight days before Hubble's observations between November 8 and 10, 2025, providing an unprecedented close-up view of fragmentation shortly after the event.
- The breakup occurred shortly after the comet's perihelion, when it passed within Mercury's orbit and experienced intense heating and stress, a common trigger for long-period comets to fall apart.
- Hubble's sharp imaging allowed researchers to trace the fragments back to the original
