Hubble caught this comet breaking apart into multiple pieces
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope just caught Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) splitting into at least four pieces (some reports resolve up to five fragments), captured between November 8 and 10, 2025, showing fragments that had formed roughly eight days earlier; one smaller fragment also broke up while Hubble was observing.
This icy visitor, discovered in 2025 and about 8km wide, started falling apart days before Hubble zoomed in; each chunk was surrounded by its own cloud of gas and dust.
How the breakup looked
Hubble's sharp images showed the breakup step by step: four fragments on November 8, then a fifth big piece split off on November 9, and by November 10 all the pieces had drifted away from each other.
Ground telescopes only saw faint blobs: Hubble really brought the drama into focus.
Fragments will be studied to learn more about the comet
If you've got a large amateur telescope and dark skies, you might still catch the fading fragments in Pisces though they are very faint.
They're heading out of our neighborhood for good: they are reported to be depleted in carbon; researchers will study what that unusual composition may reveal about the comet's origin.