The Hubble space telescope has taken the clearest pictures yet of comet ATLAS and found it has broken into dozens of pieces. The comet was found by the ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) robotic astronomical survey system in December 2019 in Hawaii. There was a lot of consideration in March that this could become the ‘comet of a generation’ as it had become uncommonly sharp. New investigations of the comet’s breakup on April 20 and 23 unveil that the pieces are all enveloped in a sunlight-swept tail of dust. These pictures provide further indication that comet fragmentation is common and might even be the powerful mechanism by which comets die.
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