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Centaur's Surface - Artist's Concept (Frame 2)

Centaur's Surface - Artist's Concept (Frame 2)


Depicts: Centaur, 8405 Asbolus
Copyright: Greg Bacon (STScI/AVL)

This is an artist's impression of object called 8405 Asbolus, a 48-mile-wide (80-kilometer) chunk of ice and dust that lies between Saturn and Uranus. Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope were surprised to find that one side of the object (also called a Centaur) looks like it has a fresh crater less than 10 million years old, exposing bright underlying ice Hubble didn't directly see the crater - the object is too small and far away - but a measure of its surface composition shows a complex chemistry. The event that caused the impact crater on 8405 Asbolus may also have knocked it out of the Kuiper belt, a ring of comet nuclei just beyond Pluto's orbit.
Last Update: 1 September 2019
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2-Jan-2025 12:40 UT

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