Watch Atlas comet disintegrate in Hubble

The comet, which is also known as C/2019 Y4, was discovered by astronomers from the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System

(ATLAS) in December 2019. At that time, it was a dim object, but after just a month its brightness increased by about 4 thousand times.

The brightness increase was much faster thanscientists thought. In this regard, the researchers suggested that C / 2019 Y4 will be the brightest comet in the last 20 years. It was planned that the celestial body could be seen from the Earth with the help of simple telescopes in May.

However, in early April, the comet beganfall apart into several parts. Astronomers have already recorded the decay using the SLT (Super-Light Telescope) and LOT (Lulin One-meter Telescope) telescopes, but the resulting images were fuzzy.

ESA now publishes clear decay shotscomets to parts made by the Hubble telescope on April 20 and 23. These images are additional evidence that comet fragmentation is likely to be common and may even be the dominant mechanism for the death of solid ice comet nuclei.

Previously, Hi-Tech detailed the story of Comet Atlas.