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8405 Asbolus
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This is an artist's impression of object called 8405 Asbolus: a 48-mile-wide (about 80 Km) chunk of ice and dust that lies between Saturn and Uranus. Astronomers using NASA's HST were surprised to find that one side of the object (also called a "Centaur") looks like it has a fresh crater less than 10 MY old, exposing bright underlying ice. Actually, 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 that could be explained by the presence of a huge Impact Crater. The event that caused the Impact Crater on 8405 Asbolus may be the same one that knocked it out of the Kuiper's Belt (which is a "Ring of Comet Nuclei" located just beyond Pluto's orbit).
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(Dettagli)
