Bizarre Asteroid with Six Tails Spotted by Hubble Telescope (Photos)

"Astronomers have spotted a never-before-seen phenomenon in our
solar system's asteroid belt: a space rock with six tails, spewing
dust from its nucleus like spouts of water radiating from a lawn
sprinkler.

Scientists using the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope at the summit of Maui's
Haleakala volcano in Hawaii first detected the six-tailed asteroid
in August. They dubbed it P/2013 P5 and noted that it looked fuzzier
than typical asteroids, which usually appear as tiny points of light.
More detailed observations with the powerful Hubble Space Telescope
in September revealed a clearer picture of asteroid, showing it had
six comet-like tails.

"We were literally dumbfounded when we saw it," researcher David
Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles said in a
statement from NASA. "Even more amazing, its tail structures change dramatically in just 13 days as it belches out dust. That also caught
us by surprise. It's hard to believe we're looking at an asteroid."

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