SpaceX will assist NASA's first-ever mission to redirect an asteroid

[editor]

Incredible, wonderful science!

 

[2hats]

Didymos/Dimorphos imaged last night from Chile with a relatively small 60cm telescope. Clear development of a debris tail evident, over 10,000 km in length.

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Dr. Christian Sasse (@Sassephoto)

#Asteroid #Didymos 2022 a few hours ago from Chile - note the long tail! This was a surprise - all-night imaging with a 0.6m telescope #Astrophotography #Astronomy #Cosmos

nitter.it

 

[T & P]

As a brief derail, anyone here who likes entertaining films should check out Don’t Look Up on Netflix. It’s a cynical dark comedy and not concerned with scientific accuracy, but very much topical and, I thought, rather funny.

 

[2hats]

Orbital period of Dimorphos now confirmed (by radar and optical observations) to have been altered by 32 minutes due to DART impact. Reduced from 11h 55m to 11h 23m.

LICIACube (@LICIACube)

💫 Nuove immagini dell'impatto della #DARTmission sull'asteroide #Dimorphos, che variato la sua traiettoria attorno a #Didymos di oltre 30 minuti. ✨ New images of DART's impact on #Dimorphos asteroid, which caused a deviation of its trajectory around #Didymos by over 30 minutes.

nitter.net

 

[2hats]

HST observations indicate that there two debris tails, reminiscent of the dust and gas tails that comets tend to form as they sweep into the inner solar system. The details of the formation of these are still being investigated.

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Twin tail revealed in new Hubble image of Didymos-Dimorphos system following DART impact

Hubble follow-up of DART impact

www.esa.int