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As NASA’s DART spacecraft slammed into an asteroid, a tiny outer called LICIACube watched from afar – present it has sent backmost its archetypal images of the collision
Space 27 September 2022By Leah Crane
Plumes of debris erupting retired of the asteroid Dimorphos ASI Italian Space Agency
NASA has smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid, and a tiny outer watched the full happening happen. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) crashed into the 160-metre-wide moonlet Dimorphos connected 26 September. Now, the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube) has sent backmost images of the collision from up close.
DART’s extremity successful smashing into Dimorphos, which orbits a larger asteroid called Didymos, was to alteration its orbit successful a trial of however we mightiness beryllium capable to deflect an asteroid heading towards Earth. While the spacecraft documented its approach to the asteroid, it was destroyed successful the existent collision.
That is wherever LICIACube comes in. DART carried the 14-kilogram outer successful a spring-loaded container and past ejected it connected 11 September truthful it could alert past Dimorphos astatine a harmless region aft the collision. This was cardinal to some figuring retired however the collision affected the asteroid itself and determining whether its orbit was changed.
The archetypal images from LICIACube amusement immense plumes of debris erupting retired of Dimorphos aft the collision. These pictures person not been analysed by scientists yet, but yet they volition uncover accusation astir the asteroid’s interior and however overmuch of it was destroyed successful the smash-up.
“Now the subject tin start,” said Katarina Miljkovic astatine Curtin University successful Australia, successful a statement. “We needed a large-scale experiment… This is to guarantee that, should Earth ever brushwood a unsafe asteroid hurling towards us, we would cognize what to do.”
It volition instrumentality astatine slightest a fewer days to observe and cipher however Dimorphos’s orbit astir Didymos has changed. That volition beryllium successful ample portion connected the asteroid’s interior spot and whether its aboveground crumbled connected collision oregon stood up to the crash. It’s similar hitting thing with a shot bat – if the entity is simply a stone and doesn’t crumble, it volition spell further than a portion of effect that breaks up into galore pieces. This accusation volition assistance find however aboriginal missions to protect Earth from immoderate perchance unsafe asteroids should beryllium designed.
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