The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a new snapshot of the asteroid that NASA recently hit with a spacecraft in an attempt to bring it down. The image reveals the clearest view yet of some unexpected results from the mission – a double tail of dust behind the asteroid system.
The image, released Thursday, is one of 18 observations the Hubble telescope has made of the Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid system since NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or Dart, mission collided with a space probe. in Dimorphos in September.
“Repeated Hubble observations over the past few weeks have allowed scientists to present a more complete picture of how the system’s debris cloud has evolved over time,” according to a statement from NASA and the European Space Agency, which jointly operate Hubble. .
“Observations show that the ejecta, or ‘ejecta’, expanded and dimmed over time after impact, largely as expected,” the statement reads.
“The twin tail is an unexpected development, although similar behavior is commonly seen in active comets and asteroids. Hubble observations provide the best-quality image of the double tail to date.” Scientists are working to understand the meaning of the split tail.
NASA noted that it’s the northernmost tail that was created recently, and scientists will use Hubble data in the coming months to take a closer look at how it might have formed. Dimorphos, the target of NASA’s Dart mission, is a smaller asteroid orbiting the larger Didymos.
Astronomers anticipated that the mission could be considered a success if the impact of the Dart spacecraft could shorten Dimorphos’ orbit by 10 seconds. But NASA revealed this month that it managed to shorten its trajectory by 32 seconds – from an orbit of 11 hours and 55 minutes to 11 hours and 23 minutes.
The Dart mission was the world’s first undertaken in the name of planetary defense, with the aim of testing technology that could one day be used to deflect an asteroid toward Earth. The mission was also the first time that humanity intentionally changed the motion of an object in space.
Source: CNN Brasil
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