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NASA remains perplexed by mysterious crumbling asteroid
sciencerecorder.com ^ | Saturday, March 08, 2014 | Delila James |

Posted on 03/08/2014 4:57:17 PM PST by BenLurkin

The Hubble Space Telescope spotted something no one had ever seen before: an asteroid shattering into as many as 10 smaller pieces.

“This is a really bizarre thing to observe–we’ve never seen anything like this,” Jessica Agarwal of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany said in a statement.

...

Asteroid P/2013 R3 was discovered last September 15 by the Catalina and Pan-STARRS sky surveys. At first, all astronomers saw was a faint, fuzzy object. Then, a couple of weeks later, the great Keck Telescope in Hawaii took a closer look and saw not one but three separate pieces traveling convoy-fashion in their own dust cloud.

By the time December rolled around, the asteroid had crumbled into 10 pieces. The four largest pieces measure about 650 feet (200 meters) across or, the length of two football fields each. The Hubble data show that the fragments are slowly drifting slowly apart at the leisurely speed of about one mile per hour.

(Excerpt) Read more at sciencerecorder.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy
KEYWORDS: asteroid; asteroids; catastrophism; p2013r3
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1 posted on 03/08/2014 4:57:17 PM PST by BenLurkin
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To: BenLurkin

Cheap Chinese asteroid.......


2 posted on 03/08/2014 4:57:58 PM PST by Toddsterpatriot (Science is hard. Harder if you're stupid.)
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To: BenLurkin

Is one of them called Rubber Ducky?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwnZ5uiiWDc#t=23


3 posted on 03/08/2014 5:03:36 PM PST by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: Toddsterpatriot
Rice rocket.
4 posted on 03/08/2014 5:03:56 PM PST by arderkrag (An Unreconstructed Georgian, STANDING WITH RAND.)
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To: Toddsterpatriot

Obamaroid....


5 posted on 03/08/2014 5:04:28 PM PST by JoeDetweiler
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To: BenLurkin

Green Cheese. Problem solved. And a new Chinese buffet has arrived.


6 posted on 03/08/2014 5:07:17 PM PST by VRW Conspirator ( 2+2 = V)
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To: JoeDetweiler

NASA is perplexed because an obama nominee is in charge....duh


7 posted on 03/08/2014 5:08:04 PM PST by Josa
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To: BenLurkin

It’s simple really, it was taken out of the oven to soon.


8 posted on 03/08/2014 5:12:24 PM PST by Mastador1 (I'll take a bad dog over a good politician any day!)
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To: BenLurkin

We are being lied to about so much...


9 posted on 03/08/2014 5:35:44 PM PST by Talisker (One who commands, must obey.)
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To: BenLurkin
Just because it's called an asteroid doesn't mean it's a solid mass.

That is, isn't the largest object in the asteroid belt an accretion of smaller objects? Perhaps the core of this one is a form of ice, and has started to out-gas?

Wasn't there a comet about 5.5 years ago that balloon up to the size of Earth or larger, as it approached the Sun?

10 posted on 03/08/2014 5:44:10 PM PST by Calvin Locke
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To: 75thOVI; agrace; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AndrewC; aragorn; aristotleman; Avoiding_Sulla; ...
Thanks BenLurkin.

11 posted on 03/08/2014 5:55:31 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: Calvin Locke

Yeah one current line of thinking is that at least some of the asteroids are just dormant comets. They have enough rock and dust on their surfaces to insulate the ice till something disturbs them or they orbit close to the sun.


12 posted on 03/08/2014 5:58:37 PM PST by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: BenLurkin

Man...those laser pointer things are really powerful. I was just messing around pointing it up in the sky, and now this asteroid is all broken up. I wonder what would happen if I pointed it at Jeff’s house? No....that would be wrong.


13 posted on 03/08/2014 5:58:45 PM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: BenLurkin

There is a good possibility that this happens a lot. This is because both within a few days before and a few days after a larger body passes by Earth, other bodies also show up, on generally the same path.


14 posted on 03/08/2014 5:58:55 PM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy (WoT News: Rantburg.com)
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To: BenLurkin

Personally I’m guessing it was just a floating rubble pile and hit a smaller asteroid that caused the pile to break up.


15 posted on 03/08/2014 5:59:49 PM PST by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

We’ve seen a few of these in recent years.

I was watching one of the alien conspiracy shows last night and they were talking about another one that was breaking up like this.


16 posted on 03/08/2014 6:01:42 PM PST by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: BenLurkin

The alien craft formerly at the center of the object has obviously shed its cloaking material & is long-gone towards home base, having collected all the required intelligence” on Sol-3 as directed ....


17 posted on 03/08/2014 6:02:18 PM PST by mikrofon (* Relatively Speaking)
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To: BenLurkin

Not enough egg in the recipe.


18 posted on 03/08/2014 6:02:58 PM PST by Yardstick
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To: BenLurkin

Mother ship, delivering smaller ships.


19 posted on 03/08/2014 6:10:12 PM PST by ansel12 (Libertarianism offers the transitory concepts and dialogue to move from conservatism, to liberalism.)
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To: BenLurkin

See if there is a sudden surge of illegal aliens now.


20 posted on 03/08/2014 6:13:20 PM PST by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite it's unfashionability)
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