2023-07-24 01:44:47
An analysis of images taken by the Hubble telescope showed a picture of the asteroid Dimorphos surrounded by debris of stones, following it was targeted by NASA’s DART mission last September in the first human attempt to deflect an asteroid from its path using a spaceship that collides with it at high speed. The asteroid Dimorpheus, and the stones appear scattered around it as small stars, and the images taken by Hubble in December show that the rocks that fly near the asteroid range in size from regarding one cubic meter to 8 cubic meters, and they are drifting away from the planet little by little. The Tech Si Daily space site points out the importance of these images as they give scientists important data regarding the behavior of an asteroid following it has been targeted and changed its trajectory. Stray asteroids represent a real collision risk on Earth. Scientists estimate that an asteroid several miles across collided with Earth 65 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs and other forms of life, in a mass extinction. And humanity can avoid this fate if we start practicing how to derail an asteroid approaching Earth. And the US space agency (NASA) began the unprecedented mission by launching a spacecraft from California at a speed of 24 thousand kilometers per hour, to collide with Dimorphos in a process aimed at deflecting its path. NASA’s experiment succeeded in deflecting the asteroid from its path, but the images taken by Hubble raise doubts regarding other risks that may be raised by the rocks that were scattered as a result of the collision. The European spacecraft Hera will give a closer perspective of the results of the NASA collision when it reaches the Dimorphos asteroid in 2026. Scientists say that the scattered rocks are likely to be stones gathered on the surface of the asteroid, and not stones that were broken from it by the collision. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope, while the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble and Webb science operations.
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