NASA has released the first detailed images of its ground-breaking “planetary defense test” in deep space in which a spacecraft crashed into a distant asteroid in an attempt to alter its trajectory.
The images were taken by what the agency calls its “big two observatories,” the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes, which captured Monday’s impact on Dimorphos, the moon of asteroid Didymos, at 6.8 meters from the Earth.
Photographs from the $325 million Dart (Dual Asteroid Redirection Test) mission were combined into two colorful time-lapse animations showing the approach of the spacecraft and then the momentary brightness of the col· lesion
Alongside the animations, which were posted on NASA’s website on Thursday, are a series of before-and-after still images showing the impact and vivid ejecta spikes, the material on the rocky surface of the ‘asteroid thrown by the force of the collision.
“Webb and Hubble show what we’ve always known to be true at NASA: We learn more when we work together,” said Bill Nelson, the agency’s administrator and former astronaut, in a statement accompanying the images.
“For the first time, Webb and Hubble have simultaneously captured images of the same target in the cosmos: an asteroid that was struck by a spacecraft after a journey of 7 meters. All mankind eagerly awaits the discoveries to come from Webb, Hubble and our ground-based telescopes, on the Dart mission and beyond.”
Mission managers said at a post-impact news conference Monday that it could be up to two months before they know whether the force of Dart’s impact was enough to move Dimorphos from its usual orbital path to around Didymos.
Scientists will monitor its motions and speed through ground-based telescopes to detect any divergence, as well as study data from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument and Near-Infrared Spectrograph.
But they were exuberant with the successful completion of the first part of the “game-changing” mission. Dart program deputy director Elena Adams said the craft hit Dimorphos head-on, just 17 meters from its target.
“It was basically a target. I think, as far as we can tell, the first planetary defense test was a success, and we can applaud that,” he said.
The Dart mission was humanity’s first attempt to move another celestial body in an unprecedented test of NASA’s ability to defend Earth from the doomsday scenario of an approaching large asteroid towards her