The veteran Hubble Space Telescope continues to prove its worth, capturing the dramatic, real-time fragmentation of a comet.

Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) had just survived its closest approach to the Sun and was heading back out into the deep solar system. However, the immense thermal and gravitational stress proved too much for the icy body. Hubble's crisp optics watched as the comet's nucleus shattered into at least four distinct, glowing fragments. It is a brilliant, albeit destructive, demonstration of how fragile these ancient icy wanderers truly are, and provides scientists with a rare opportunity to study the freshly exposed interior pristine material of a comet.

More information from the ESA: Hubble unexpectedly catches comet breaking up