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Scientists have captured incredible images of an asteroid breaking apart for the first time.
The Hubble Space Telescope snapped the photos of the rocky asteroid, named P/2013 R3 crumbling
into about 10 pieces, each leaving comet-like dust.
The space rock was located in orbit between Mars and Jupiter, around three times further
away from the sun than Earth. While asteroids have broken many times in the past, never
before have scientists been able to witness it. They believe that that this asteroid disintegrated
because of exposure to sunlight over a number of years. This caused it to spin at a slower rate
until it eventually fell apart over several months.