The image, released Thursday, is one of 18 observations the Hubble telescope made for the Didymos-Demorphos asteroid system from NASA’s Dual Asteroid Diversion Test, or DART, The mission crashed a probe in Demomorphos in September.
“Repeated observations from Hubble in recent weeks have allowed scientists to provide a more complete picture of how the debris cloud system has evolved over time,” according to a statement from NASA and the European Space Agency, which jointly operates Hubble.
“The observations indicate that the ejecta, or ‘ballistic’, had expanded and faded in brightness over time after impact, as was widely expected,” the statement said. Common in active comets and asteroids. Hubble observations provide the best dual-tailed image quality to date. “
Scientists are working to understand the importance of tail splitting. NASA has indicated that the northern tail is newly created and scientists will use the Hubble data over the next few months to take a closer look at how it formed.
Demorphos, the target of NASA’s DART mission, is a small asteroid orbiting the larger Didymus. Astronomers estimate the mission could be considered a success if the impact of the DART spacecraft can shorten Demorphos’ orbit by 10 seconds. But this month, NASA revealed it I amHe was able to reduce his trajectory by 32 seconds, from 11 hours and 55 minutes to 11 hours and 23 minutes.
The DART mission is the first in the world to be carried out on behalf of Planetary Defense, With the aim of testing technology that could one day be used to deflect asteroids to Earth. The mission is also the first time humanity has intentionally altered the movement of an object in space.
