Having organized a landmark experiment to protect the Earth from asteroids, which ended with the collision of the DART probe with a celestial body, NASA did not miss the opportunity to take pictures of the event from different angles. The shooting was attended not only by the DART camera itself, but also by telescopes – James Webb and Hubble.
Photo taken by the James Webb telescope 4 hours following the collision. Image Source: NASA
A photo of the moment of the collision was published by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). The explosion on the surface of the small asteroid Dimorph came out very spectacular.
Sequence of shots from “James Webb”
It is known that DART was created to conduct the world’s first experiment on “kinetic impact” on space objects. In other words, the goal was to hit the asteroid with DART to shift its orbit. Someday, similar technology might be used to save our planet from a truly threatening asteroid. Dimorph and its larger “companion” Didyme do not pose a direct threat to the Earth.
Image Source: NASA
According to the head of the mission team DART Andy Rivkin, this is the first time in history that the leading space observatories James Webb and Hubble have taken pictures of the same space object at the same time.
Sequence of images from Hubble
The images show light of different wavelengths – Hubble took the visible part of the spectrum, and James Webb used infrared instruments. At the epicenter of the explosion, an increased level of brightness persisted for several hours. The plumes of matter ejected from the surface of the asteroid as a result of the impact are also visible.
Astronomers will continue to study the received and available data in order to understand how the collision affected the structure of the Dimorph and its trajectory.
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