NASA’s DART Mission - what NASA's Spacecraft saw

byVizualMinds -
0

 

NASA’s DART Mission

NASA successfully slammed a spacecraft directly into an asteroid Monday night. This is the first major example of a planetary defense strategy (and a move straight out of a sci-fi movie).

NASA's DART Mission
{getButton} $text={Image from jpl.nasa.gov} $icon={link} $color={#4353ff}

It is the culmination of a NASA project called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, also known as DART, which started seven years ago with about $300 million. The spacecraft launched in November 2021 and was used in a one-way mission to test the feasibility of kinetic collisions. In other words, could NASA pilot a spacecraft to crash into a (virtually Earth-bound) asteroid and veer it off course?

Monday's test suggests the answer is yes. Scientists say the spacecraft hit its intended target - an egg-shaped asteroid called Dimorphus - as planned. Nevertheless, NASA officials hailed the mission as an unprecedented success. I'm here.

“The success of DART represents an important addition to the essential toolkit needed to protect our planet from catastrophic asteroid impacts. It shows that you are not helpless."


{getButton} $text={Image from jhuapl.edu} $icon={link} $color={#4353ff}


Importantly, NASA says Demorphos isn't actually rushing toward Earth. It describes the asteroid Moonlet as a small celestial body, only 530 feet in diameter, orbiting a larger 2,560-foot asteroid called Didymos. Neither poses a threat to Earth. Researchers expect the DART effect to shorten Dimorphus' orbit around Didymos by about 1 percent, or 10 minutes, NASA said. Investigators will use ground-based telescopes to observe Demorphos within 7 million miles of her from Earth and track these precise measurements.

Also, take a closer look at the images of the collision and its aftermath to better understand the dynamic effects.

This is what it looked like from Earth via ATLAS' Asteroid Tracking Telescope System.


The Italian Space Agency`s Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids deployed from the spacecraft time period earlier so as to capture images of DART's impact and "the asteroid's resulting cloud of ejected matter," as NASA puts it. Because it doesn't carry an outsized antenna, it adds, those images are downlined to Earth "one by one within the coming weeks."

The instrument on the spacecraft itself, known by the acronym DRACO, also captured images of its take for it hurtled through the last 56,000 mile-stretch of space into Dimorphos at a speed of roughly 14,000 miles per hour.

Its final four images were snapped just seconds before impact. The dramatic series shows the asteroid gradually filling the frame, moving from a faraway mass floating within the darkness to offering an up-close and private view of its rocky surface.

Here it's on video (it's worth leaving your volume on for mission control's reaction):


The final image, taken some four miles far from the asteroid and only one second before impact, is noticeably incomplete, with much of the screen blacked out. NASA says a DART collision occurred when this image was sent to Earth, leading to a partial image.

See for yourself:

This photo taken by NASA's DART spacecraft shows both Didymo (top left) and Dimorphus. About 2.5 minutes before impact and 570 miles.


He saw Demorphos 11 seconds before the collision, where the DART probe was about 42 miles away.


This is the last complete image of Dimorphus captured by his DRACO imager on his DART mission for NASA before impact. It shows an asteroid patch about 100 feet in diameter, taken from a distance of about 7 miles of impact and two seconds before him.


This final shot of Dimorphos was taken just a second before impact. Incomplete because the shock occurred when the image was transmitted to Earth.

{getButton} $text={Images from jhuapl.edu} $icon={link} $color={#4353ff}


Tags

Post a Comment

Previous Post Next Post