Hubble caught a comet breaking into pieces right after passing the Sun

science & techESA/Hubble2025 · Solar System

Hubble caught a comet breaking into pieces right after passing the Sun

the gist

Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), which had just passed its closest approach to the Sun and was heading out of the Solar System, was caught by the Hubble Space Telescope breaking into at least four pieces in November 2025. It had been intact only days before. Comets are loose mixtures of ice and dust, and passing near the Sun heats them, causing gas to jet away and the nucleus to weaken. Thermal stress and the pressure of escaping gas can then tear the body apart. Catching a fragmentation in the act is rare and shows what comets are made of.

so what

Comet breakups reveal their inner structure, which holds material left over from the formation of the Solar System about 4.6 billion years ago.

fun fact

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was torn apart by Jupiter's gravity before hitting the planet in 1994.

more on this

background

C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) is a non-periodic comet first seen in May 2025. It is one of many comets discovered by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS). The comet is dynamically new, having come directly from the Oort cloud. With perihelion only 0.33 AU (49 million km; 31 million mi) from the Sun, the comet was not expected to survive perihelion passage, but it did and was recovered on 18 October 2025. The comet has broken into multiple fragments and fragments A+B+D should be ejected from the Solar System. Fragment-C may remain bound to the Solar System.

From Wikipedia: C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗

see

NASA/ESA/CSA JWST NIRCam; Bryce Bolin et al. & Melina Théve…, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

NASA/ESA/CSA JWST MIRI; Bryce Bolin et al. & Melina Thévenot, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. Bolin…, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

ESA/Hubble · CC BY 4.0

Image: ESA/Hubble

source: ESA/Hubble ↗

historyWikipediaclassic1336–1565 · Karnataka, India

Hampi was once one of the world's largest cities, until its Vijayanagara capital was destroyed in 1565

the gist

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.

how it works

The city was built around a fortified core with temples, markets and water structures along the river, supplied by an extensive network of roads and waterworks. When the empire fell, the city was not rebuilt, so its stone monuments were left standing.

so what

Hampi shows how quickly a great city can vanish after a military defeat, and how a ruined capital can remain sacred. Its ruins give historians a view of medieval South Asia that few other sites can match.

fun fact

The name Hampi comes from Pampa, an old name for the Tungabhadra River.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · text CC BY-SA 4.0

Image: Wikimedia Commons

source: Wikipedia ↗

2 min

politicsshortCNA2:01

False allegations about Singapore’s hand in Indonesia’s markets and a made-up meeting

from CNA

CNA Verify has found close to 400 posts pushing falsehoods tying Singapore to Indonesia’s stock market rout and to a secret meeting that never took place. Together, they drew nearly 12 million views, and some were circulated by accounts that appeared to be working in concert, across multiple social media platforms.

Here’s how the disinformation campaign targeting Singapore was uncovered.

on YouTube: CNA ↗