27 September opened a new chapter in technology when NASA’s DART, sent on a mission, successfully crashed against the asteroid Dimorphos, about the size of a pyramid, 11 million kilometers away from our beautiful earth.
DART Images Before and After Strike
The spectacular first images before and after the crash reached earth about 3 HRS later. The images of the historic moment were captured by LICIACube of the Italian Space Agency.
The set of images sent includes an asteroid, Dimorphous, before and after DART’s impact. It also includes pictures of the debris surrounding the asteroid after the collision.
Elisabetta Dotto, head of the team of scientists at INAF, speaking at a news conference in Italy, later said that they were proud of their achievement.
These first few pictures released by INAF will help scientists to decode the composition and the structure of the asteroid Dimorphus.
Dotto further added that these pictures were just the first few of the many more to come, which she says are also very interesting.
The final picture of the day shows asteroid Dimorphus engulfed by the flying debris which could be best described as bright and hazy.
scientists were skeptical of what the response of the asteroid would be to the collision with DART.
This mission was undertaken by NASA to test ways to re-adjust the orbit of an incoming asteroid that could potentially strike the earth in the future.
Post the strike astronomers are following Didymos, the larger asteroid around which Dimorphus orbits, and measure its speed post the impact. This is the data NASA requires to study how successful the DART mission was. NASA officials also took the help of 3 spacecraft and many observatories on the ground to study the aftermath of the collision.
