New photos have come up that show a huge part of NASA’s asteroid battering ram that took out of a space rock yesterday. The asteroid did not come as a threat to Earth and the collision was part of the space agency’s Double Asteroid Reduction Test (DART). DART is a trial of tech that could push a killer asteroid off course long before it jeopardized the safety of Earth.
Earlier today, the Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube) released photos o Twitter. It collaborates with DART and the pictures exhibit Dimorphos, an asteroid that was — until yesterday — vaguely egg-shaped. Now, there’s a big dent in the middle.
If the data demonstrate that the effort was fruitful, we might have found a way to combat dangerous incoming asteroids.
However, don’t get too excited. It will be long before scientists will definitively measure Dimorphos’ new orbit, so we don’t know yet whether the spacecraft that hit it did enough damage to alter its trajectory.
“Weeks and months of hard work are now starting for scientists and technicians involved in this mission, so stay tuned because we will have a lot to tell!” LICIACube said online.
This definitely would e a great chance for NASA to have a moment of accomplishment as its record is not exactly very ideal lately.