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Gault

The asteroid Gault is the point at left, with streaks of dust stretching out half a million miles behind it.
The asteroid Gault is the point at left, with streaks of dust stretching out half a million miles behind it. Image: NASA, ESA, K. Meech and J. Kleyna (University of Hawaii), and O. Hainaut (European Southern Observatory)

In 2019, the Hubble Space Telescope captured something astonishing: the destruction a 2.5-mile-wide asteroid named Gault, which was ejecting huge streams of dust in its wake. Though this drama could have begun a long time ago—on the order of a hundred million years—these events can pick up steam as they go on. Gault is not yet gone, but we’re lucky to have gotten a peek at it through Hubble as it completes its last dance.

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