Disintegration of comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) is captured in photos by astronomers

Astronomers are following the continuous disintegration of comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), a celestial body identified at the beginning of 2025 that fragmented after a recent approach to the Sun. The most recent images, released in November 2025, confirm the phenomenon, revealing multiple pieces.

The remarkable photographs were taken by astronomer Gianluca Masi, from the Virtual Telescope Project, who recorded comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) breaking apart. The core, composed of ice, is believed to have disintegrated into several sections due to the intense heat emitted by the Sun. Its closest approach to the star occurred on October 8, 2025, and since then evidence of fragmentation has become clearer.

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Recent captures confirm the separation into multiple fragments. In a statement accompanying the images, Masi detailed the observation of “three fragments of the original nucleus and possibly a fourth”, highlighting the complexity of the event.

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Masi’s image acquisition, carried out throughout the last week of November, used a Celestron C14 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope on a Paramount ME mount, equipped with a SBIG ST-10XME self-guided CCD camera. Seven individual 60-second exposures were combined, all without the use of filters.

The exposures were made on five different nights, between November 11 and 18, 2025, and overlapped to form an animation that illustrates the displacement of the fragments in relation to each other.

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An analysis of one of the images led Masi to suspect the existence of a possible fourth fragment, adding another piece to the disintegration puzzle.

Observers at the Asiago Observatory in Italy also recorded comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) on November 11, 2025. Using the 1.82-meter Copernicus telescope, they noticed that the celestial body had already split into two fragments separated by a distance of approximately 2,000 kilometers.

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However, even with the first observations, Asiago astronomers already suspected “a third fragment, smaller and fainter, to the left of the pair”, as detailed by Mazzotta Epifani in an official report from the National Institute of Astrophysics of Italy.

The origin of C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), like that of many comets, is linked to the distant Oort Cloud. This vast spherical bubble, composed of icy bodies, surrounds the most remote borders of our solar system. Long-period comets, which rarely venture into the inner regions of the system, are born in this region. The Oort Cloud is considered a reservoir of billions of icy objects, including comets and even larger bodies classified as dwarf planets, which explains the composition and fragility of C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) as it approaches the Sun.