Something Just Destroyed This Asteroid And We Don't Know What It Was

When a liquid or gas is heated in an asteroid, the molecules move faster, bump into each other, and spread apart from the heat of the sun occupying a larger volume causing the asteroid to slow down. Then possibly a trailing comet (that was blocked from the solar rays from the leading asteroid) hit the asteroid and shattered it

reply to post by TrueAmerican


Disclosure? Naaaaah. ET's just playing games, "Asteroid" to be specific. Gotta love their sense of humor. It's all good, ATS won't see it coming, or subscribe if it did...true, true....sooooo true. Rocks, yeah yeah, just rocks....from space, see the faces? Seriously, even if the MS Andromeda showed up, "Full Monty", some jackass on this site would say, "no pics, no proof", while they sit on the crapper loading their own threads over and over and over, waiting for someone to Star and Flag their "omniscient" post. HA! Tell me I'm lying! Dares and doubles, or something about a dog. Too funny! No worries tho, for all the spell checkers and run-on post haters. Lolololol!, the emoticon users who hate the texters, who hate the uppity guppies. Here is to the truth seekers, the torch bearers, the unabashed, unashamed few. Get off Phage's sack, post up, and say something that hasn't been said.

I love this site. Rock on!

IT WAS SLAYER!!!!!!!!

Phage
On topic: if gravity is the only thing holding a small clump of stuff together it wouldn't take a lot of angular momentum to tear it apart. The escape velocity for a small body is quite...small.

Yup. I'm gonna go with the explanation given sounds pretty on the mark. Not to mention its had billions of years to get to this point and break apart slowly. Cool story none the less.

jadedANDcynical
reply to post by TrueAmerican

 

Wait wait wait a sec, is this the same thing?

Prepared using the Tamkin Foundation Computer Network

[email protected]
URL www.minorplanetcenter.net... ISSN 1523-6714

COMET P/2013 R3 (CATALINA-PANSTARRS)

MPEC 2013-S53 : COMET P/2013 R3 (CATALINA-PANSTARRS)

Comet?

A Main-belt comet, which is basically an asteoird in the main-belt that exhibits comet-like activity. David Jewitt from UCLA points out that these objects are most likely not comets with sublimating ice, but asteroids that exhibit dust activity, and hence he and others started calling these class of objects active asteroids.

P.S. I've noticed that the Wikipedia article I just linked is certain that the sunlight effect is the cause:

The Yarkovsky–O'Keefe–Radzievskii–Paddack effect, caused by sunlight, increased the spin rate until the centrifugal force caused the rubble pile to separate.

It was a rock the had a lot of cracks, and hence it got all cracked up...

reply to post by TrueAmerican


One question would be, why were they watching that one particular asteroid when there are millions of them to observe? It's not as if it was going to be a near Earth object.

Maybe I have bad eyes, but I see two "items" splitting up. Amazing pic, S&F

I'm guessing that the asteroid mining got started a little early?

news.msn.com...

I hope its profitable.

Bilk22
reply to post by TrueAmerican

 

One question would be, why were they watching that one particular asteroid when there are millions of them to observe? It's not as if it was going to be a near Earth object.

It was known to be unusual when first discovered last year.

The crumbling asteroid, designated P/2013 R3, was first noticed as an unusual, fuzzy-looking object on 15 September 2013 by the Catalina and Pan-STARRS sky surveys.

spaceref.com...

Kangaruex4Ewe
How long before The Galactic Federation claims they did it?

Spit coffee on that. The statement would be a funny read.

OT it does kind of look like there were some dramatic separation angles. Very interesting sequence of images.

Phage
reply to post by TrueAmerican

 

Thought I lucked out and was immune.

Immune from ATS immortality?


On topic: if gravity is the only thing holding a small clump of stuff together it wouldn't take a lot of angular momentum to tear it apart. The escape velocity for a small body is quite...small.

edit on 3/9/2014 by Phage because: (no reason given)

People don't want to believe in angular momentun..they want to believe in alien laser weapons in the Siberian wilderness that come up from under the ground to save us from an imminent metoerite impact like Tunguska, for example.

reply to post by andy1972


Never mind. Totally inaccurate post after rereading the link.

reply to post by OatDelphi


well seeing as only the gravity of this little dust ball is holding it together then it really wouldent take much to fragment it, possibly a single atom?

reply to post by TrueAmerican



I don't think this has anything to do with a black hole. If a black hole were moving in close enough to cause the disintegration of an asteroid in our solar system, objects with larger mass would be showing much more effect than the asteroid did.


Sure, this may be an indicator of some change with in the solar system, how ever at the same time we can not rule this out as being completely of the norm as far as happenings in space. Those asteroids have been there longer than human thought has existed, how can we take anything and make such assumptions as to their origins and nature.

Peculiar yes, how ever I feel the explanation will turn out to be rather mundane.

Please, don't throw out the Black hole, or dark star theory every time something happens in space.

perhaps it was pregnant and that's how it gives birth?

A lot of people probably think of asteroids as solid rocks. Perhaps this one was a rubble pile like asteroid Itokawa. A rubble pile is formed when two solid bodies collide and break into numerous smaller pieces, and then most of these fragments eventually come together through the force of their own gravity to form a single mass. That would make the resulting body much more susceptible to breakup due to rotationally induced structural failure than if it were a monolithic body.

Maybe it was unstable from being formed through rubble just slowly pushing together and it may have crossed the path of a few bigger solid asteroids who's gravitational force ( i know its very minor) literally broke the thing apart.

The liquid freezing within the asteroid and splitting it is apart is also a viable reason seeing as they say space is full of water and its damn cold up there

TrueAmerican
reply to post by TrueAmerican

And the crucial paragraph:

Celestial bodies absorb light from the sun and then re-emit much of this energy as heat. Irregularly shaped objects such as P/2013 R3 emit more heat from some areas than others, causing a tiny imbalance that spins the body up slowly over time. This increased rotation rate likely has caused P/2013 R3's constituent pieces to move apart due to centrifugal force, researchers said.

Kind of hard to believe that could create enough centrifugal force to cause the breakup of an asteroid!

edit on Sun Mar 9th 2014 by TrueAmerican because: (no reason given)

Wait...wtf? Why have I got 1 million+ stars all of a sudden? Ahh crap... Looks like the glitch finally got me too...Thought I lucked out and was immune...

edit on Sun Mar 9th 2014 by TrueAmerican because: (no reason given)

I would be much easier to understand if many of these asteroids are 'loose' aggregate rather that a solid rock. They already know that the 'peanut' asteroid is much denser in at least half of its area than the rest, and probably a candidate for a similar break-up. Come to think of it, the 'Peanut' is closer into the solar system, and while the Japanese are examining it.
A JAXA picture of Itokawa, the peanut shape is obvious, but you could also say the aftermath of a two car collision many moons ago.











www.space.com...

reply to post by TrueAmerican


Since we've had about a hundred different concepts on what happened to the body, let's throw in one that given common knowledge in several areas, should be allowed.

I suggest that the asteroid was destroyed by a missile to check the effectiveness of a missile system and warhead. The test was done in that remote area because the warhead was a nuke and there is little change of the debris to every threaten Earth. That it was a secret test that could be explained as a rare event that just happened to be discovered is not out of the question.

By fairly reasonable reasoning anyone can conclude that the US has some phenomenal craft that have replaced the decrepit space shuttle than never had a reasonable rocket-powered replacement designed or fashioned to take its place. That vastly new,change-of-pace replacement is the triangle craft that are frequently noted mostly over the US. It is not a stretch to accept that those craft with UFO-type capabilities can move deep into space and will have major weapon systems as a matter of course. Allowing all of the above, a "live" test/demo should not be out of consideration. I don't think there is a bit of flawed commonsense thinking in the above to say it is out of reason.