![]() Observing the impact with Webb presented the flight operations, planning, and science teams with unique challenges, because of the asteroid’s speed of travel across the sky. Images from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) show a tight, compact core, with plumes of material appearing as wisps streaming away from the center of where the impact took place. Webb took one observation of the impact location before the collision took place, then several observations over the next few hours. Webb Captures Impact Site Before and After Collision Combining this information, along with ground-based telescope observations, will help scientists to understand how effectively a kinetic impact can modify an asteroid’s orbit.ĭownload full-resolution, uncompressed versions and supporting visuals from the Space Telescope Science Institute ![]() Observing the impact across a wide array of wavelengths will reveal the distribution of particle sizes in the expanding dust cloud, helping to determine whether it threw off lots of big chunks or mostly fine dust. Additionally, Webb and Hubble captured the impact in different wavelengths of light – Webb in infrared and Hubble in visible. Observations from Webb and Hubble together will allow scientists to gain knowledge about the nature of the surface of Dimorphos, how much material was ejected by the collision, and how fast it was ejected. ![]() All of humanity eagerly awaits the discoveries to come from Webb, Hubble, and our ground-based telescopes – about the DART mission and beyond.” “For the first time, Webb and Hubble have simultaneously captured imagery from the same target in the cosmos: an asteroid that was impacted by a spacecraft after a seven-million-mile journey. “Webb and Hubble show what we’ve always known to be true at NASA: We learn more when we work together,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. The coordinated Hubble and Webb observations are more than just an operational milestone for each telescope – there are also key science questions relating to the makeup and history of our solar system that researchers can explore when combining the capabilities of these observatories. DART is a test for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards. It was the world’s first test of the kinetic impact mitigation technique, using a spacecraft to deflect an asteroid that poses no threat to Earth, and modifying the object’s orbit. 26, 2022, at 7:14 pm EDT, DART intentionally crashed into Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet in the double-asteroid system of Didymos. These observations of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impact mark the first time that Webb and Hubble simultaneously observed the same celestial target. "That's how I ended up going into science, was kind of being inspired by Hubble images."Įven science educator and author Hank Green retweeted Christensen's app.Two of NASA’s Great Observatories, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope, have captured views of a unique NASA experiment designed to intentionally smash a spacecraft into a small asteroid in the world’s first-ever in-space test for planetary defense. "I think my favorite responses were people saying they showed this interactive to their kids and got their kids very excited about it," Christensen said. Christensen said many of the responses expressed the same kind of wonder he felt about the leap from Hubble to Webb. It reached tens of thousands of people, and got thousands of responses. So he coded the app to answer his questions, and he shared it on Reddit and Twitter, where it went viral. "Why did we spend so much human engineering effort and time and money to create this thing?" "What's different about it?" he asked about Webb. When he saw the first of the Webb images released on Monday, Christensen was impressed, but like pizzafourlife, he didn't fully comprehend the improvement between Hubble and Webb without a reference point. "I would watch lots of PBS space documentaries with my dad and look at a lot of astrophotography, mostly from Hubble." "I grew up really enjoying looking at the Hubble images," Christensen told NPR over the phone.
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