WATCH: NASA films DART spacecraft crash into an asteroid for planetary defense testĭART will have to rely on itself for the landing Parts of the camera’s overall goal of the landing include confirming the spacecraft’s impact, observing the evolution of the ejected plume, and potentially capturing images of the newly formed impact crater, and the opposite hemisphere of Dimorphos that DART will never see.Įditor’s note: designboom has updated the article since the crash occurred. LICIACube (pronounced LEE-cha-cube), which the Italian Space Agency (ASI) contributed, has two optical cameras: LUKE (LICIACube Unit Key Explorer) and LEIA (LICIACube Explorer Imaging for Asteroid).Īs NASA writes, each camera will collect scientific data to inform the microsatellite’s autonomous system by finding and tracking the target asteroid Dimorphos throughout DART’s encounter. The spacecraft’s own ‘mini-photographer’ called LICIACube (short for Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging Asteroids) captured images of a crescent Earth and the Pleiades star cluster on September 21st and 22nd respectively as part of preparing DART for documenting its landing. Photographing the impact for scientific researchĪ day before the crash, NASA released images of DART’s companion. Screenshots courtesy of NASA, via Youtube The research team of the DART collision is now working on the scientific data and research that they can derive from the crash. Cluster of gray rocks zoomed in as DART got nearer to the asteroid before the screen cracked as it landed. According to NASA, ‘while the asteroid poses no threat to Earth, this is the world’s first test of the kinetic impact technique, using a spacecraft to deflect an asteroid for planetary defense.’Īs seen in the video during the live crash of DART into Dimorphos, the space agency team rejoiced as visible images of the asteroid were captured by the attached camera (more below) of the spacecraft. The space agency’s attempt sets a foolproof protection mechanism for people living on Earth. NASA writes that if this test becomes successful, the same technique could be used to protect the Earth from a threatening asteroid impact in the future, should one ever be discovered or happened. ET on September 26th, NASA successfully filmed Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) crash into a tiny asteroid named Dimorphos for its first-ever test of planetary defense.
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