Return of the Flying X

A few months back I posted about a bunch of weird stuff that could have been alien UFO sightings. One of those chance encounters was a strange X flying through space that the Hubble telescope caught a glimpse of (link).

As you can see it is pretty strange so I figured it could only be one thing...

...Silver Surfer.

Well despite how cool it would be had the X actually been the Silver Surfer, sadly it is not. So astronomers believe it could have been caused by to asteroids crashing into each other.

"Astronomers suspect a rock maybe 10-16 feet (3-5 meters) wide slammed into a larger asteroid at speeds of about 11,200 mph (18,000 kph) with a detonation as powerful as a small atomic bomb, said researcher David Jewitt." [...Said Jewitt]

"These observations are important because we need to know where the dust in the solar system comes from, and how much of it comes from colliding asteroids as opposed to 'outgassing' comets," Jewitt said. "We can also apply this knowledge to the dusty debris disks around other stars, because these are thought to be produced by collisions between unseen bodies in the disks. Knowing how the dust was produced will yield clues about those invisible bodies."[...]

My favorite quote from the SPACE article (link) is the very first line.

"Astronomers now have the first confirmed snapshots of what appears to be the aftermath of an asteroid collision in space."

So they have confirmed would could be an asteroid collision. Sounds a bit fishy if you ask me. I'm going to use this as an excuse to post a bunch of kick ass pictures of the silver surfer.







Yep that is way cooler than two asteroids crashing into one another.