Okay Geek Farm
Feb 3 - NASA Found a UFO flying at 11,000 MPH
Brandon Davenport
O my gosh u guys! NASA has apparently said they have found a "X-shaped object" traveling at like a million miles an hour (11,000 mph to be exact) and of course, word has spread like wildfire around the internets and we are going along for the ride. You can see that there is something wrong with this comet or as NASA puts it "This is quite different from the smooth dust envelopes of normal comets". I think this raises more questions than answers...
What Happened?
Why is there an x-wing flying around space?
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has observed a mysterious X-shaped debris pattern and trailing streamers of dust that suggest a head-on collision between two asteroids. New Hubble images taken on Jan. 25 and 29 show a complex X-pattern of filamentary structures near the nucleus.
This is quite different from the smooth dust envelopes of normal comets. The filaments are made of dust and gravel, presumably recently thrown out of the nucleus. Some are swept back by radiation pressure from sunlight to create straight dust streaks. Embedded in the filaments are co-moving blobs of dust that likely originated from tiny unseen parent bodies.
"If this interpretation is correct, two small and previously unknown asteroids recently collided, creating a shower of debris that is being swept back into a tail from the collision site by the pressure of sunlight. The filamentary appearance of P/2010 A2 is different from anything seen in Hubble images of normal comets, consistent with the action of a different process.
NASA | Who else?
What they mean is "We have no idea what the hell this is, but don't worry."
Ok, so now what?
What do we do now that the aliens are coming? Well I can bet you this, no aliens are coming (knock on wood) but, is this really a comet or is it something more? Sure a comet does not make this shape on its own, and it can be explained, sort of:
Its the fact that its 460-foot-wide nucleus is outside the dust halo and separated from the trail. This behavior is something which has never been seen before in a comet or any other solar-system-soaring object.
View - The full close up image
