Astronomers have captured sharp, detailed images of a comet breaking apart about 108 kilometers from Earth.

The images taken by NASA's Hubble space telescope shows 25 different fragments made up of a mixture of ice and dust as they drifted away from the comet at a pace equivalent to the walking speed of a normal human adult.

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The images could indicate that the approximately 4.5 billion-year-old comet, nicknamed comet 332P, is spinning so fast that materials are ejected from its surface.

"We know that comets sometimes disintegrate, but we don't know much about why or how," said lead researcher David Jewitt from the University of California, Los Angeles.

The observations have provided valuable insight into the volatile behavior of comets as they get close to the sun and begin to vaporize, unleashing powerful forces.

According to Jewitt, such events usually take place quickly and without warning, so scientists do not have time to collect useful data. However, thanks to Hubble's fantastic resolution, scientists have been able to observe tiny bits of the comet. This has allowed them to make the best measurements ever recorded for such an object.

The observations show that comet shards brighten and dim as icy patches on their surfaces rotate into and out of the glare of the sunlight. Their shapes change too as they break apart. The icy relics make up about 4 percent of the parent comet, and range in size from 65 feet wide to 200 feet wide.

The images show that the parent comet changes brightness on a regular basis, completing a rotation every two hours.

The images were taken over a span of three days in January 2016.

TagsScience, hubble, comet