A Hyper-Velocity Impact In the Asteroid Belt?

astroengine writes "Astronomers have spotted something rather odd in the asteroid belt. It looks like a comet, but it's got a circular orbit, similar to an asteroid. Whether it's an asteroid or a comet, it has a long, comet-like tail, suggesting something is being vented into space. Some experts think it could be a very rare comet/asteroid hybrid being heated by the sun, but there's an even more exciting possibility: It could be the first ever observation of two asteroids colliding in the asteroid belt."

Comments

Re:Or, maybe...

[jhoegl]

For the love of god... somebody kick these nerds asses!

Lateral spray

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me that an asteroid collision would most likely produce lateral debris spray that would be more tangential to the orbit than perpendicular to it.

Re:We need an asteroid in the face, folks.

[FreakerSFX]

Reference:

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=9866

Re:Asteroids boring?

[Chris Mattern]

Our asteroid belt is boring, with every rock more or less tidally locked to each other.

It's also a lot sparser than a lot of people realize--enormously more empty than any representation you see on film, TV or video games. You could fly through it and never see an asteroid with the naked eye except as a point of light.

Re:Priorities are a function of Probabilities

[syousef]

And what exactly do you suppose we puny humans can do about that "huge locomotive with blaring sirens that's about to hit [us]"? We can neither deflect the "locomotive" (your "dinosaur killer"), nor can we get out of the way (move the whole planet).

We can't deflect it in the stupid way portrayed in movies, but we may well be able to change it's trajectory. How do we know? Have we spent any significant time or resources trying to find a way? Your defeatist attitude is awful, and we'd never have survived as a species if we'd all been that way from the start.