More on that asteroid collision in space

Expectations have met reality with regard to the recently-observed asteroid collision.

For one thing, astronomers working with the Rosetta mission (and its OSIRIS camera) have been able to trace back the chain of events to pin down just about when it happened.

Further, it appears that rather than being particularly violent, with chunks of space minerals flying off hither and yon into the asteroid belt, the collision basically just created a debris cloud that is very slowly dispersing in the vacuum of space. (According to Hubble, that is.) It makes sense; the only thing that would cause wider dispersion would be some sort of turbulence-making medium, and there's very little of that in space; and also, there's gravity keeping the little pieces close to the main body.

So now we have a bit of a better handle on what happens
WHEN ASTEROIDS COLLIDE!
(cue soft apocalyptic music)