Hubble Telescope Discovers Asteroid Collision in the Nearest Star System

JAKARTA - NASA's Hubble Space Telescope managed to capture a rare moment. This moment shows the collision event between asteroids and planetesimals.

This event is known to have occurred around the Fomalhaut Star, which is about 25 light-years from planet Earth. The portrait immortalized by the Hubble Space Telescope was then observed by researchers, one of whom was Paul Kalas Researcher from the University of California.

"This point of light was not in all of our previous Hubble images, which means we have just witnessed a violent collision between two massive objects," explained Paul, quoted through NASA's official website on Monday, December 22.

The star Fomalhaut is known as one of the brightest stars located in the constellation Piscis Austrinus. The star, nicknamed 'Southern Fish', has a more massive size and a brighter temperature than the Sun.

Initially, the object named Fomalhaut b was suspected to be a planet, but it was now revealed that the object was a dust cloud left over from the collision. Astronomers admitted to being surprised when they found a second light point called 'cs2' in a location adjacent to the first object.

The emergence of two major collision events in a period of 20 years is a mystery. Previous theories predicted that collisions of this magnitude should only occur once in 100,000 years.

Based on data analysis, the objects that collided are estimated to have a diameter of about 60 kilometers. The research team concluded that there are about 300 million similar objects orbiting within the Fomalhaut planetary system.

The research team has now obtained additional observation time to monitor the development of the cs2 dust cloud over the next three years. They want to see if the object will trigger a large 'dust avalanche' that can make the entire system brighter.