This is the Last Thing DART saw as it Smashed Into its Asteroid Target

The last complete image of asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, taken by the DRACO imager on NASA’s DART mission from ~7 miles from the asteroid and 2 seconds before impact. The image shows a patch of the asteroid that is 100 feet across. Dimorphos’ north is toward the top of the image. Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL

“DART’s success provides a significant addition to the essential toolbox we must have to protect Earth from a devastating impact by an asteroid,” said Lindley Johnson, NASA’s Planetary Defense Officer. “This demonstrates we are no longer powerless to prevent this type of natural disaster.

Overnight and today in the morning after, images from ground-based telescopes have been coming in, confirming that DART made impact. Researchers will be able to measure precisely show much the impact changed Dimorphos’ orbit, but they expect the impact to have shortened its orbit by about 1%, or roughly 10 minutes. Being able to precisely measuring how much the asteroid was deflected is one of the primary purposes of the full-scale test.

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