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Scientists have seen that the space rock (the asteroid Dimorphos) now has two tails of bluish light. Photo / NASA / Space
The DART mission hit a small asteroid called Dimorphos on September 26 to test potential techniques to protect Earth from asteroid threats. Within two days, the pressure of the solar radiation pushes the impact debris into a comet-like tail about 10,000 kilometers long.
However, after just over a week, new images from the Hubble Space Telescope show that the asteroid Dimorphos has grown to have two tails. This impact by NASA personnel is considered an unexpected impact.
Read also; NASA planetary defense system succeeds, DART mission reduces Dimorphos orbit by 32 minutes
If the asteroid itself is the center of the clock, DART comes from 10 o’clock. The light streaks at 1, 7, and 10 o’clock are not debris; this is the diffraction caused by the Hubble optics. According to the European Space Agency, the two queues appeared at 2 and 3, partners of the Hubble mission.
NASA noted that the second tail developed between October 2 and 8, after the Hubble telescope observed the asteroid 18 times from the impact. Astronomers have seen similar twin tails develop on comets, but scientists are still not sure how the second tail formed.
The fact that the asteroid Dimorphos lost enough material to form such a large tail reflects the severity of the impact. The main goal of the DART mission is to measure how much collision time is cut from Dimorphos’ orbit around a larger asteroid called Didymos.
Read also; The collision of the DART spacecraft and the Dimorphos asteroid create 10,000km of debris
The mission required to shorten the orbit, originally 11 hours and 55 minutes, reduced by at least 73 seconds. Although scientists estimated prior to arrival that the change could last up to tens of minutes, the result was that the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos was shortened by 32 minutes.
(Spider web)
