Overview
- Newly released Hubble images taken November 8–10, 2025 resolved at least four to five fragments, with one piece splitting again.
- C/2025 K1 passed perihelion at about 0.33 AU on October 8, 2025, an intense solar encounter that likely drove the disruption.
- Analyses show a delay between the breakup and the comet’s brightening, pointing to possible dust crust formation or slow internal heating and pressure buildup.
- The peer-reviewed study detailing the sequential fragmentation appears in Icarus, following NASA/ESA’s public release of the processed images.
- The comet is now a dispersed cloud roughly 400 million kilometers from Earth in Pisces, heading out of the Solar System and unlikely to return.