Bad Astronomy

When asteroids collide

In honor of Star Wars Day (May the Fourth be with you)…

I’ve been running around a lot the past week, and a few stories I wanted to write about slipped past me. One in particular was about an asteroid collision in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter; it was observed by the orbiting telescopes Swift and Hubble. All the more aggravating, I spent years working with both observatories (research with Hubble, and educational outreach with Swift)! I really wanted to write about this. Plus, asteroid collisions are cool, and y’all should get a chance to hear about them.

Happily for me, the folks at NASA (specifically Scott Wiessinger who makes videos for the space agency) put together a good story about the collision in easy-to-digest video form:

Awesome. Now back to my regularly scheduled running around.

Related posts:

- Hubble captures picture of an asteroid collision
- Ten things you don’t know about comets
- Repeat after me: Apophis is not a danger
- kaBLAMBLAMBLAM!