Stardust

[dduane]

...of a kind. Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 is falling apart (as it has been since '95, when its nucleus split in four). Check out this one-minute video, an animation created from Hubble Space Telescope stills, as the comet sheds some more of its interior on its inward swing toward the sun. (Its period is about five and a half years.)

...And no, it's coming nowhere near us. The calved-off chunks will be passing Earth at something like seven million miles' distance.