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The team is using that data - as well as new information on the composition of the asteroid moonlet and the characteristics of the ejecta, gained from telescope observations and images from DART’s ride-along Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube) contributed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) - to learn just how much DART’s initial hit moved the asteroid, and how much came from the recoil. Scientists estimate DART’s impact displaced over two million pounds (one million kilograms) of the dusty rock into space - enough to fill six or seven rail cars. The length across the animation changes from roughly 110,000-129,000 kilometers across the field of view at the distance of Didymos as Didymos recedes from the Earth.Ĭredit: University of Canterbury Ōtehīwai Mt. Each frame of this video is the average over an entire night of observing, with the telescope holding the Didymos system in the center and the stars appearing as streaks. This video is constructed of images taken in the first month after the DART impact by astronomers at the Ōtehīwai Mt. Video of Didymos System from September 27-October 21, 2022 In the weeks after impact, scientists turned their focus toward measuring the momentum transfer from DART’s roughly 14,000-mile-per-hour (22,530-kilometer-per-hour) collision with its target asteroid.

WITH SPACE EYE NASA DART FIRST HOW TO

Now we use the observations to study what these bodies are made of and how they were formed - as well as how to defend our planet should there ever be an asteroid headed our way.”Ĭentral to this effort are detailed, post-impact science and engineering analyses of data from the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration. “Impacting the asteroid was just the start. “What we can learn from the DART mission is all part of a NASA’s overarching work to understand asteroids and other small bodies in our Solar System,” said Tom Statler, the program scientist for DART at NASA headquarters in Washington, and one of the presenters at the briefing. DART team members provided a preliminary interpretation of their findings during the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting on Thursday, Dec. This has included further analysis of the “ejecta” - the many tons of asteroidal rock displaced and launched into space by the impact - the recoil from which substantially enhanced DART’s push against Dimorphos.Ĭontinued observations of that evolving ejecta have given the investigation team better understanding of what the DART spacecraft achieved at the impact site.

26 - altering its orbit by 33 minutes - the investigation team has been digging into the implications of how this planetary defense technique could be used in the future, if such a need should ever arise. Since NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft intentionally slammed into the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos on Sept.

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