According to CNET, NASA (NASA) does not intend to miss the opportunity to use its most powerful space observatory to capture its historic impact on an inconspicuous asteroid. On Thursday, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) released new images taken by the Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope , recording the moment when the DART spacecraft hit the asteroid Dimorphos.
DART is designed as humans' first asteroid defense test project, with the goal of smashing a spacecraft onto an asteroid and seeing if the collision can change the orbit of space rocks. This technology can one day be used to protect the earth from the asteroids that threaten our planet or the comet .
Neither Dimorphos or the larger asteroid Didymos orbited by the small satellite will pose any threat to the earth. In fact, no known asteroid poses a major threat.
efforts to capture the impact moment, as well as early and subsequent images of the fall site, marking the first time that Weber and Hubble have observed the same target at the same time. "This is an unprecedented view of an unprecedented event," Andy Rivkin, head of the DART investigation team, said in a statement.
These images were taken with light of different wavelengths, Hubble showed the impact with visible light, and Webber showed it with infrared instruments. The bright center in the image shows the impact point, which maintains a height of brightness for several hours. The matter ejected from the surface of the asteroid after the collision is also visible. "When I saw the data, I couldn't speak, and I was stunned by the amazing details of the ejection captured by Hubble."
Astronomers will continue to review the observations and data of the incident with telescopes in space and on the ground to better understand how the impact changed Dimorphos, both structurally and on its path through the universe.
