You can tell they're the same by the way the ship's nose suddenly bends downward mid-explosion. If you watch both scenes from start to finish, the ship gives off a puff of an explosion once, keeps going and looks fine for about 2 frames, and then explodes and goes careening out of control. The placement of the sparks gives it away 100%. Even if they used the same explosion technique, the particulars (such as sparks and ship behavior) would have been different.

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/2188/lollazy2.jpg

Anyway, to avoid going off topic: The new explosion in the asteroid field looks great! The subtle addition of debris and the fact that the bridge doesn't just "vanish" is leaps and bounds of an approvement. I always thought it looked weird to have the bridge just "vanish" like that, especially with no trace of debris or anything. Good job!