First glimpses of Dimorphos: The first time LICIACube watched a rocky asteroid collapse
Dimorphos, which had never been seen before, turned out to be egg-shaped and covered in boulders. The rocky asteroid has surprised scientists, who are eager to study the images captured by DART before it crashed in a blaze of glory.
The DART team said the transfer of momentum was 3.6 times greater if the asteroid had absorbed the spaceship and no material was blasted from it. The researchers said that the momentum created when Dimorphos’ surface material blasted out into space influenced the way the asteroid was moved.
It may have been the first glimpse of an asteroid, but it isn’t the only perspective we’ve seen.
The Hubble Space Telescope spied the debris from the collision as it was being released from the Dimorphos.
But the most dramatic images were the first ones shared by LICIACube, the mini Italian satellite that followed DART and watched the entire event from a safe distance. The best part? We are going to see a lot over the next two months.
The CNN Women’s Choice Award at the End of the Iceberg Era: A Case Study of the Titanic Disaster in 1912, and the Discovery of the Birth of a Firework
It’s difficult to predict who will win these prestigious awards because the nominators, short list and the selection process are kept from public view.
There are many woman who deserve to be considered, such as Dr. Mary-Claire King, who discovered cancer-causing genes.
Meet more of the female scientists on CNN’s list and learn about the revolutionary discoveries they’ve made in vaccine research, astronomy and chemistry.
Scientists are tuning in to the surprisingly noisy nature of glaciers to learn how quickly ice is melting amid the climate crisis – and to uncover mysteries of the deep.
On April 14, 1912, the British merchant steamship had sent a message to the RMS Titanic, but the iceberg warning never reached the massive ocean liner’s main control center on that fateful night.
A German submarine torpedoed the Mesaba just six years later, resulting in the death of 20 people. But the exact location of the vessel has been unknown until now.
Webb spotted the “bones” of a stunning spiral galaxy located 29 million light-years from Earth, a feat even more surprising when compared with Hubble’s view of the same galaxy.
Meanwhile, astronomers analyzed Webb’s very first image and determined that it contains some of the oldest stars and galaxies in the universe – including one that looks a lot like a celestial firework.
– The Hubble Space Telescope may get a boost into a higher orbit to extend its life, depending on the findings under a new exploratory agreement between NASA and SpaceX.
The Physics of Smashing A Spacecraft into an Asteroid. I. The Impact of DART and Dimorphos on Its Collision Spectrum
There are a couple of things to notice. DART moved backwards after the collision because it bounced. In this case, velocity will have a negative effect on the one-dimensional example.
We just have two equations and two variables, so these equations aren’t impossible to solve—but they’re also not trivial. If you added up all the numbers, you would get what you want. (If you really want all the details, I have you covered.)
The last velocity is 1.46mm/s and is twice that of the inelastic collision. Since the DART spacecraft bounces back, it has a much larger change in momentum (going from positive to negative). This means that Dimorphos will also have a larger change in momentum and a larger change in velocity. It is still a small change, but twice something tiny is bigger than tiny.
The collision spectrum consists of elastic and inelastic crashes. Most fall somewhere in between, in that the objects don’t stick together but kinetic energy is not conserved. You can see that an elastic collision is the best way to change an asteroid’s trajectory.
Source: https://www.wired.com/story/the-physics-of-smashing-a-spacecraft-into-an-asteroid/
The Collision of Dimorphos with an Asteroid on a Space-based Course with Earth: What we can learn from the DART Mission
Dimorphos orbits Didymos according to the same physics that make the moon orbit the Earth. Since there is a gravitational interaction between them, Didymos pulls Dimorphos toward their common center of mass—a point much closer to the center of Didymos, because it’s larger. If both objects started from rest, this force would cause them to collide. But that’s not the case. Dimorphos has a velocities that’s very close to the same force that causes it to move around the center of mass. It’s possible (but not absolutely necessary) that this orbit is circular.
The intentional collision, which took place on September 26 as a test of asteroid deflection technology, displaced more than 2 million pounds (1 million kilograms) of rocks and dust from the asteroid into space. Scientists say it was enough material to fill about six or seven rail cars.
Scientists are learning about the planetary defense technique from the insights gained from the collision. That’s if an asteroid is ever discovered to be on a collision course with Earth.
“What we can learn from the DART mission is all part of a NASA’s overarching work to understand asteroids and other small bodies in our Solar System,” said Tom Statler, program scientist for DART at NASA, in a statement.
“Momentum transfer is one of the most important things we can measure, because it is information we would need to develop an impactor mission to divert a threating asteroid,” said Andy Cheng, DART investigation team lead from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, in a statement.