More images and details continue to come in about the asteroid intentionally smashed by NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft last week, and this latest image is stunning.
A telescope in Chile called SOAR took an image of asteroid Dimorphos two days after the DART impact and found that the asteroid was trailing a debris stream more than 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) long. However, other reports indicate that the debris trail could be as long as 50,000 km (31,000 miles) and could still be growing.
Astronomers using the SOAR telescope at NSF’s NOIRLab in Chile captured the large plume of dust and debris thrown from the surface of asteroid Dimorphos by NASA’s DART spacecraft when it impacted on September 26 of 2022. In this image, the dust trail is more than 10,000 kilometers long. . Credit: NOIRlab.
Astronomers Teddy Kareta of the Lowell Observatory and Matthew Knight of the US Naval Academy used the 4.1-meter Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR) at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. They captured the best image yet of the huge plume of dust and debris that DART scooped up from the asteroid’s surface.
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Astronomers said the dust trail seen here is ejection that has been pushed away by the Sun’s radiation pressure, like the tail of a comet. In this image, the ejecta can be seen extending from the center to the right edge of the field of view about 3.1 arc minutes in length. At Dimorphos’ distance to Earth at the time of observation, this would equate to at least 10,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) from the point of impact.
“It’s amazing how clearly we were able to capture the structure and extent of the fallout in the days after the impact,” Kareta said.
However, according to a Facebook discussion group for the Near-Earth Object Confirmation Page (NEOCP), astronomer Alain Maury said on October 3 that the tail has grown to 13 arcminutes . This means that the ejecta tail could now be at least 50,000 km (31,068 miles) long. You can see an animation of the evolution of the debris tail at this link.
Knight said they plan to use SOAR to monitor the ejection in the coming weeks and months, and hope to share more high-resolution images of the debris track.
DART intentionally crashed into Dimorphos, which is a moon orbiting a larger asteroid Didymos, on Monday, September 26, 2022. This was the first planetary defense test in which a spacecraft impact attempted to modify the orbit of an asteroid. The DART team will need several weeks of analysis to determine whether and to what extent Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos was changed.
SOAR telescope with snow on the mountain. Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. sources
Although creating a debris and ejecta field would not be optimal if an asteroid were to come close to Earth, tests like this are critical if planetary scientists want to understand how asteroids respond to impacts, especially if the target is deflect it from hitting Earth. Scientists want to better understand the amount and nature of the ejection resulting from an impact and how that might help modify an asteroid’s orbit.
“Now begins the next phase of work for the DART team as they analyze their data and observations from our team and other observers around the world who participated in the study of this exciting event,” said Knight.
Further reading: NOIRLab press release
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