Croci reported September 30, 2022 that on 27 September at 1:14 the NASA Dart probe intentionally crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos. The Dart project has thus become the first full-scale test of the kinetic impact technique for the purpose of planetary defense for the protection of the Earth, if in the future there are dangerous situations caused by celestial objects that intersect the Earth's orbit, [which will certainly happen sooner or later.]
To testify the impact, an exceptional photojournalist, LICIACube, the first completely Italian mission in deep space financed by the Italian Space Agency and carried out by Argotec with the scientific coordination of INAF. The images taken from its two chambers, Leia and Luke, testify the impact of Dart showing the cone of debris ejected from the surface of Dimorphos. In addition to LICIACube, many other observers from earth and space contributed with their images to provide an overview of what happened that night.
Webb and Hubble, two milestones of space observation, have pointed in the direction of the asteroid and have processed some images depicting the collision. The observations by Webb and Hubble will allow scientists to gain insights into the nature of Dimorphos' surface, how much material was ejected from the collision and at what speed. Furthermore, the two telescopes captured the impact in different wavelengths of light: Webb in the infrared and Hubble in the visible. Observing the impact over a wide range of wavelengths will reveal the particle size distribution in the expanding cloud of material, helping to determine whether it is made up of large parts or fine dust. The combination of this information, along with observations from ground-based telescopes, will help scientists understand how much a kinetic impact is can change the orbit of an asteroid .
Webb carried out an observation of the impact site before the collision occurred and then continued with several others in the following hours, for a total of five hours and 10 images acquired. The images of the Nircam (Near-Infrared Camera) show a tight and compact core, with plumes of material that appear as threads moving away from the center of the point where the impact occurred.
Scientists also plan to observe the asteroid system in the coming months using Webb's mid-infrared instrument (Miri) and Webb's near-infrared spectrograph (Nirspec). The spectroscopic data will provide researchers with information on the chemical composition of the asteroid.
Hubble captured images of the binary system before impact, then again 15 minutes after the collision. The images of the Wide Field Camera 3 show the impact in visible light. Thanks to these photos, the scientists were able to estimate that the brightness of the system increased three times after the impact and remained constant, even eight hours after the impact.
"Webb and Hubble show that we can learn more when we work together - said NASA administrator Bill Nelson - for the first time, the two observers simultaneously captured images from the same target in the cosmos: an asteroid that was hit by a probe. We all look forward to the next discoveries of these extraordinary missions."
For more, see:
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-dart-photos-asteroid-impact-mission-rcna49621
https://www.asi.it/2022/09/liciacube-conferenza-stampa-con-le-prime-immagini/
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