Comet Linear 1999 S4
When a small asteroid hit the center of Comet LINEAR 1999 S4, the explosion from the matter-antimatter energy split the comet into fragments & dust particles as shown below:
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Paranal (Chile), evening of August 6. For more information, please visit VLT web site. |
The Hubble Space Telescope observed the comet on August 5, 2000. More than a dozen fragments were created along with a cloud of dust in the area where LINEAR comet was supposed to be. The image below is only a small section of the photo.
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The large scale images and complete story are on the Hubble web site. |
The surface area of a comet increases significantly with the breakup of the comet into fragments. The lifetime of the comet is also significantly reduced.