Last Monday, September 26, darts mission NASA achieved its goal by deliberately colliding with an asteroid to change its trajectory. While we’ll have to wait for new data to see if it was properly rejected, the exposure was successful while millions of eyes watched the show live around the world. But there were not only human eyes. A large number of telescopes, both on Earth and in space, also observed one of this year’s grandiose cosmic events. And, as it could not be less, among them was perhaps the greatest space event of 2022: James Webb.
The largest infrared space telescope of all time has also witnessed the DART show and has already released its images. his predecessor, Hubblealso immortalized this moment, although we are not expected to see photos until October.
In short, many other telescopes, both in space and on Earth, have photographed collision. We can see it from many angles, but this is just the beginning and there is still a lot to learn about DART.
New work by James Webb
Images of James Webb were taken by him infrared camera, NIRKAM. You can see a glow in them that corresponds to the exact moment of impact, when debris is ejected from the surface. asteroid Dimorphos.
This photo will be joined by the Hubble photo, as well as the photo Lucy. This is a mission sent by NASA to study Trojan asteroids. On the way to his destination, he managed to take DART pictures, although they have not yet been released to the public.
More photos of DART
Apart from James Webb, Hubble or Lucy, many photographs have also been taken from ground-based telescopes. Together, they will help NASA scientists better understand the results of DART.
However, the most valuable information will be provided by LICIACube and Hera. The first one is satellite. Italian space agency who accompanied DART during its journey and was responsible for taking close-up photographs both before and after the collision. DART also had its own camera; but, logically, it committed suicide after the plane crash. On the other hand, an Italian satellite that flew at a reasonable distance could continue to film the crater and what was left of Dimorphos.
As for Hera, she European Space Agency (ESA) mission, which will travel to the binary system formed by Dimorphos and its companion asteroid Didymos and study what the consequences of the former’s trajectory actually were. Unfortunately it’s not expected to make it there. until 2026so we still have a long way to go before we know for sure if DART has fully achieved all of its goals.
At the moment there are reasons for optimism and we have many photos to recreate ourselves with this historical landmark. James Webb is just one of many we have and are yet to come.
Source: Hiper Textual
