Posted on 09/30/2022 7:29:25 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: Fifteen days before impact, the DART spacecraft deployed a small companion satellite to document its historic planetary defense technology demonstration. Provided by the Italian Space Agency, the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging Asteroids, aka LICIACube, recorded this image of the event's aftermath. A cloud of ejecta is seen near the right edge of the frame captured only minutes following DART's impact with target asteroid Dimorphos while LICIACube was about 80 kilometers away. Presently about 11 million kilometers from Earth, 160 meter diameter Dimorphos is a moonlet orbiting 780 meter diameter asteroid Didymos. Didymos is seen off center in the LICIACube image. Over the coming weeks, ground-based telescopic observations will look for a small change in Dimorphos' orbit around Didymos to evaluate how effectively the DART impact deflected its target.
For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.
Outer space billiards!.....................
Glad youāre ok!
Dimorphosā physical appearance seems to suggest a loose structure.
I havenāt read much about its makeup, maybe Iām wrong, but I wonder just how much of that impact was absorbed by that material.
Looks like a giant falafel
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Thanks. Ian was a category 2 when it went past where I live. It dumped 17 inches of rain and uprooted two large oak trees in my yard. Neither one landed on my house.
Looks good. I could go for that right about now!š
So if I read this right, we hit the dude on the right, which is orbiting the bigger dude near the center. We’ll then watch this orbit and see if it changes, due to our collision.
I saw a report on youtube by Anton Petrov that said the collision created more ejectile than was expected. And that might have cushioned the impact of the DART.
I’m wondering if next year this time, we’ll have the Dimorphos meteor shower.
Thank God. We just heard from my brother-in-law.
He and a buddy have been buying houses, fixing them, and selling them around Fort Meyers and the Tampa-St. Pete area. They were working on a house in Bradenton, but escaped to Mississippi because of the storm. They are in a hotel and plan on going back tomorrow. He has no idea what awaits them.
That is my understanding of how this test is supposed to work.
Thanks, the caption was a bit tough to follow.
100% of the projectile's (impactor's) momentum was absorbed by Dimorphos. (Where else could it have gone?!) Some of that momentum was converted into heat.
Regards,
OK, this is going to sound downright silly, BUT . . . every time I see a story like this, the verse(s) verses from Revelation start going through my head. You know, about a “star” called Wormwood falling into the sea and killing either every living thing in the ocean, or 1/3 of the ocean life, I forget which . . .
Glad to hear that! You certainly dodged a bullet.
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