Starship Asterisk*

APOD Robot wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 4:05 am DART Asteroid Impact from Space

Explanation: Fifteen days before impact, the DART spacecraft deployed a small companion satellite to document its historic planetary defense technology demonstration. Provided by the Italian Space Agency, the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging Asteroids, aka LICIACube, recorded this image of the event's aftermath. A cloud of ejecta is seen near the right edge of the frame captured only minutes following DART's impact with target asteroid Dimorphos while LICIACube was about 80 kilometers away. Presently about 11 million kilometers from Earth, 160 meter diameter Dimorphos is a moonlet orbiting 780 meter diameter asteroid Didymos. Didymos is seen off center in the LICIACube image. Over the coming weeks, ground-based telescopic observations will look for a small change in Dimorphos' orbit around Didymos to evaluate how effectively the DART impact deflected its target.

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AVAO wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 4:49 am ...
I wonder why the flight of the thrown materials sometimes shows large wavy lines?


Original Image Credit: ASI/NASA

FLPhotoCatcher wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 4:41 am https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg4DiOmKlVM

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

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wo of NASA’s Great Observatories, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope, have captured views of a unique NASA experiment designed to intentionally smash a spacecraft into a small asteroid in the world’s first-ever in-space test for planetary defense. These observations of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impact mark the first time that Webb and Hubble simultaneously observed the same celestial target.

On September 26, 2022 at 7:14 pm EDT, DART intentionally crashed into Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet in the double-asteroid system of Didymos. It was the world’s first test of the kinetic impact mitigation technique, using a spacecraft to deflect an asteroid that poses no threat to Earth, and modifying the object’s orbit. DART is a test for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards.

The coordinated Hubble and Webb observations are more than just an operational milestone for each telescope – there are also key science questions relating to the makeup and history of our solar system that researchers can explore when combining the capabilities of these observatories. ...

orin stepanek wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 1:48 pm dart-zoom_bkg-nologos1_0.jpg
So we hit Dimorphos; but it stays in orbit around Didymos! What
good does that do if Didymos doesn't change it's orbit?

johnnydeep wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 9:21 pm

orin stepanek wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 1:48 pm dart-zoom_bkg-nologos1_0.jpg
So we hit Dimorphos; but it stays in orbit around Didymos! What
good does that do if Didymos doesn't change it's orbit?

My understanding is that the goal here was only to change Dimorphos' orbit, not Didymos. It's purely the first proof of concept test on something very small whose orbit is also small, fast, and easily measured. My guess is that they certainly could have impacted Didymos, but maybe the small size of the impactor wouldn't have changed its orbit enough to be easily measurable as certainly due to the impact as opposed to other extraneous factors outside NASA's control.

AVAO wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 4:49 am I wonder why the flight of the thrown materials sometimes shows large wavy lines?

Original Image Credit: ASI/NASA

AVAO wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 4:49 am I wonder why the flight of the thrown materials sometimes shows large wavy lines?

Original Image Credit: ASI/NASA

APOD Robot wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 4:05 am DART Asteroid Impact from Space

Mathew32df wrote: ↑Thu Oct 27, 2022 4:05 am

APOD Robot wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 4:05 am DART Asteroid Impact from Space

Sorry but the photo is a bit blurry, do you have a clearer picture?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LICIACube wrote:
LICIACube
Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube, IPA: [ˈli.t͡ʃi.əˌkjuːb][1]) is a six-unit CubeSat of the Italian Space Agency (ASI). LICIACube is a part of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission and carries out observational analysis of the Didymos asteroid binary system after DART's impact on Dimorphos. It communicates directly with Earth, sending back images of the ejecta and plume of DART's impact as well as having done asteroidal study during its flyby of the Didymos system from a distance of 56.7 km (35.2 mi), 165 seconds after DART's impact.[2]
...
Scientific payload
LICIACube is equipped with two optical cameras for conducting asteroidal reconnaissance during flyby, dubbed LEIA (LICIACube Explorer Imaging for Asteroid), a Catadioptric camera, a narrow field of view (FoV) of 2.06°, 25 microradian/pixel, 2048x2048 pixels, monochrome, achieving a best resolution of 1.38 m/pix at closest approach) camera, and LUKE (LICIACube Unit Key Explorer), a wide 5° FoV imaging camera with an RGB Bayer pattern infrared filter. These captured scientific data revealing the composition of the asteroid and provided data for its autonomous system by finding and tracking the asteroid throughout the encounter. As it was released when DART sped up for its intentional impact, it took an image every 6 seconds during DART's impact period. It had preliminary flyby targets including taking 3 high resolution images revealing the asteroid's morphology concentrating on the physics of the asteroid and plume generations after impact. This may help characterise the consequences of the impact.[4]