Photo Agency - Astronomy - Space - Nature

> Asteroid collapsed by tidal force - Artist view

Asteroid collapsed by tidal force - Artist view

author: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Novapix

reference: a-ast99-91010

Image Size 300 DPI: 25 * 20 cm

This artist's concept illustrates a dead star, or "white dwarf," surrounded by the bits and pieces of a disintegrating asteroid. Asteroids are leftover scraps of planetary material. They form early on in a star's history when planets are forming out of collisions between rocky bodies. When a star like our sun dies, shrinking down to a skeleton of its former self called a white dwarf, its asteroids get jostled about. If one of these asteroids gets too close to the white dwarf, the white dwarf's gravity will chew the asteroid up, leaving a cloud of dust.

Keywords for this photo:

2009 - ASTEROID - ASTRONOMY - GRAVITY - ILLUSTRATION - STAR - WHITE DWARF -