Check it out: New video captured by Hubble Space Telescope showing debris from DART asteroid impact
A video released by NASA on Wednesday shows debris created when the Dual Asteroid Reorientation Test (DART) mission spacecraft crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos. (Courtesy of NASA/ESA/STScI/Jian-Yang Li (PSI)/Joseph DePasquale (STScI))
rear National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)Successfully complete planetary defense test in 2022 ChinaThe US space agency plans to launch a spacecraft designed to change the orbit of a near-Earth asteroid by 2030.
In a recent paperThe China National Space Science Center announced that asteroid 2015 XF261 has been selected for the kinetic energy impact deflection test.
The Chinese spacecraft will initially orbit the asteroid for about three to six months, using its four onboard instruments to study its size and composition. The spacecraft will be equipped with four scientific instruments: a spectral and 3D detector, a color camera, a radar, and a dust and particle analyzer.
Asteroid 2015 XF261 is listed in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Small Body Database. (NASA)
After studying the asteroid, the probe will enter the asteroid and act as an impactor or battering ram. After the impact, China will monitor the asteroid’s orbit for six to 12 months.
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirect Test The spacecraft was able to change the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos around its parent asteroid Didymos by approximately 32 minutes, or 4%, making the first planetary defense test declared a success.
In a study published earlier this year, The DART collision ejected about 1% of Dimorphos’ mass into space. This resulted in about 8% of the asteroid’s mass being shifted over the rocky body.
Astronomers using the SOAR telescope at NSF’s NOIRLab in Chile captured a massive plume of dust and debris blasted off the surface of asteroid Dimorphos when it was struck by NASA’s DART spacecraft on September 26, 2022. (Images credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/SOAR/NSF/AURA/T. Kareta (Lowell Observatory), M. Knight (U.S. Naval Academy))
a Europe The space agency’s HERA spacecraft is due to launch in October to visit Didymos and Dimorphos and study the impact sites in detail. When HERA arrives at the two sites in 2026, it should be able to determine how much DART has altered the asteroids’ surfaces.
China aims to launch a planetary defense spacecraft in 2027.
