NASA’s Asteroid-Smashing Spacecraft Snaps First Image of Its Target

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft is lastly close by of its goal. In 17 days, the probe will crash head-on into Dimorphos, a pure satellite tv for pc of the asteroid of Didymos.

The plan to smash a spacecraft right into a binary asteroid system is a part of an effort to shore up our planetary protection capabilities. DART, launched in November 2021, will take a look at how humanity may redirect an asteroid in case we spot one on a collision course with Earth. NASA mentioned this week that the DART staff was lastly in a position to see the sunshine reflecting off the asteroid Didymos after combining 243 photographs taken by DART’s high-resolution imager, known as the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO).

“This first set of images is being used as a test to prove our imaging techniques,” mentioned Elena Adams in a NASA release. Adams is the DART mission methods engineer at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. “The quality of the image is similar to what we could obtain from ground-based telescopes, but it is important to show that DRACO is working properly and can see its target to make any adjustments needed before we begin using the images to guide the spacecraft into the asteroid autonomously.”

DRACO’s photographs will assist the DART staff optimize the software program and navigation methods which are guiding the craft towards the asteroid system. While this picture has confirmed that Didymos is in DART’s view, the craft will be impacting Dimorphos—a satellite tv for pc asteroid of Didymos generally known as a minor-planet moon. NASA is aiming to crash DART head-on into Dimorphos on September 26, and scientists shall be in search of information on how the impression altered the asteroid’s trajectory, by measuring the change in Dimorphos’ orbit round Didymos.

Let’s be clear: This is simply an experiment. NASA says Didymos and Dimorphos don’t pose a menace to Earth, and the vitality transferred via DART’s impression is low sufficient to forestall knocking them into an Earth-bound trajectory.