Space and astronomy news
Here’s a sharper view of Dimorphos, the small asteroid moonlet that the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft intentionally crashed into. Eydeet on Imgur created a higher resolution image of Dimorphos by stacking the last few images received from the spacecraft before impact.
First impressions? It’s an egg-shaped rubble pile.
Continue reading “A Single High-Resolution Image of Dimorphos Stacked From DART’s Final Images”
What happens when you whack a little asteroid with an even littler spacecraft? People around the world watched on the 26th of September when the DART mission smashed into the side of Dimorphos. This tiny worldlet is a companion asteroid to Didymos. It was the world’s first test of the kinetic impact technique, using a spacecraft to deflect an asteroid by modifying its orbit. Amateur observer networks and professional observatories tracked the meetup from the ground. In a first, both Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) took simultaneous images and data.
Continue reading “DART Impact Seen by Hubble and Webb”
Here’s one of the best videos we’ve seen of the last minutes of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission as it headed towards and slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos. This stabilized version of the last five-and-a-half minutes of images leading up to DART’s intentional collision with the asteroid was produced from NASA’s DART images. It was produced by the YouTube channel Spei’s Space News from Germany.
Continue reading “Watch a Nicely Stabilized Video of DART Flying Past Didymos and Slamming Into Dimorphos”
The first-ever planetary defense technology demonstration mission successfully conducted its mission, slamming into the surface of a distant asteroid and going out in a blaze of glory. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft acted as a kinetic impactor, colliding with the small and harmless asteroid Dimorphos on September 26 at 7:14PM ET, with the hope of deflecting it.
Continue reading “This is the Last Thing DART saw as it Smashed Into its Asteroid Target”
There’s an old joke that the dinosaurs are only extinct because they didn’t develop a space agency. The implication, of course, is that unlike our reptilian ancestors, we humans might be able to save ourselves from an impending asteroid strike on Earth, given our six-and-a-half decades of spaceflight experience. But the fact is that while we have achieved amazing things since Sputnik kicked off the space age in 1957, very little effort thus far has gone into developing asteroid deflection technologies. We are woefully inexperienced in this arena, and aside from our Hollywood dramatizations of it, we’ve never yet put our capabilities to the test. But that’s about to change.
Continue reading “China is Building an Asteroid Deflection Mission of its own, due for Launch in 2025”
It might not look like much, but here is the first monumental image from the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). Earlier this month, a circular door covering the aperture of its DRACO telescopic camera was opened, allowing the camera to take its first image.
Now, imagine what the camera’s last image will be like: a REALLY closeup view of a binary asteroid system, Didymos and especially, its moonlet Dimorphos. The goal of DART is to intentionally collide with Dimorphos. If everything goes according to plan, this will alter the asteroid’s motion so that ground-based telescopes can accurately measure any changes.
Continue reading “Here’s DART’s First Picture From Space. We Are Already Looking Forward to its Last Image”
After more than two years in orbit around asteroid Bennu, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is ready to come home. It’s bringing with it a pristine sample of space rocks that geologists here on Earth are eager to study up close. The sample will arrive in September 2023, but we won’t have to wait nearly that long for new data from OSIRIS-REx. Last week, the probe carried out one final flyby of Bennu, in an effort to photograph the sample collection site. The photographs are being downlinked now, and should be here by midweek.
If you’ve been following the OSIRIS-REx mission, you probably already know why scientists are keen to see these photographs, but if you haven’t, hold on to your hats – it’s a wild story.
Continue reading “OSIRIS-REx Did One Last Close Flyby of Asteroid Bennu. It’s Almost Time to Come Home”
Despite humanity’s current struggle against the novel coronavirus, and despite it taking up most of our attention, other threats still exist. The very real threat of a possible asteroid strike on Earth in the future is taking a backseat for now, but it’s still there.
Though an asteroid strike seems kind of ephemeral right now, it’s a real threat, and one that—unlike a coronavirus—has the potential to end humanity. Agencies like NASA and the ESA are still working on their plans to protect us from that threat.
Continue reading “This Powerful Ion Engine Will Be Flying on NASA’s DART Mission to Try and Redirect an Asteroid”
For some small minority of humans, Death By Asteroid is a desirable fate. The idea probably satisfies their wonky Doomsday thinking. But for the rest of us, going out the same way the dinosaurs did would just be embarrassing. Thankfully, the ESA’s Hera mission will visit the smallest spacerock ever, and will help us avoid going the way of the dinosaurs.
For added kicks, it will forestall the happiness of any over-earger doomsday cultists, and the rest of us can revel in their existential anguish.
Continue reading “ESA is Planning a Mission to the Smallest Spacerock Ever Visited: the Moon of an Asteroid”
Within near-Earth space, there are over 18,000 asteroids whose orbit occasionally brings them close to Earth. Over the course of millions of years, some of these Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) – which range from a few meters to tens of kilometers in diameter – may even collide with Earth. It is for this reason that the ESA and other space agencies around the world are engaged in coordinated efforts to routinely monitor larger NEOs and track their orbits.
In addition, NASA and other space agencies have been developing counter-measures in case any of these objects stray too close to our planet in the future. One proposal is NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), the world’s first spacecraft specifically designed to deflect incoming asteroids. This spacecraft recently moved into the final design and assembly phase and will launch to space in the next few years.