Asteroid Smacked by NASA’s DART Spacecraft Now Has a Comet-Like Tail – CNET

DART Explained: First Asteroid Crash Images.

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Immediately after NASA purposefully crashed its Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos, a plume of dust and particles astronomers describe as ejecta was visible to telescopes watching in area and on Earth. Now, follow-up observations reveal the dust is being pushed away from the asteroid by the solar wind, creating a tail thats comparable to those were utilized to seeing tracking comets. DART, an experiment in planetary protection, aimed to see if basically throwing a robotic probe at an object from Earth might impact the course of that thingss orbit. Such a maneuver could one day aid humankind prevent an unpleasant encounter with an asteroid or comet that poses a severe effect danger to our planet..

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Dimorphos presents no such hazard (and in reality no recognized near-Earth objects are presently considered to be a significant danger). There are plenty of asteroids and other space rocks out there that we have not yet found or started tracking, so the data got from DART could actually come in handy at just about any minute. The collision took place on Monday, Sept. 26, and within less than 2 days, a distinct tail was easily visible from ground-based telescopes..

DART, an experiment in planetary defense, intended to see if essentially tossing a robotic probe at an item from Earth might affect the path of that items orbit. There are plenty of asteroids and other space rocks out there that we have not yet found or started tracking, so the information gained from DART could literally come in handy at simply about any moment. Rob and Richard Wainscoat from @UHIfA plan continued observations of the asteroid.

Our last post was Mondays observations of the particles from the #DART impact on Didymos. Rob and Richard Wainscoat from @UHIfA strategy continued observations of the asteroid.

They were able to calculate that its brand-new tail is at least 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) long. “It is fantastic how plainly we were able to capture the structure and level of the aftermath in the days following the impact,” Kareta stated in a declaration.

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