Tracking DART Debris

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Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

 

Video imagery:
Hubble images: SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, STScI, Jian-Yang Li (PSI). Image processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI).

 

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Text, Tracking Dart Debris, March 10, 2023. A time lapse from September 27 takes photos as an asteroid glows with blue light. 

 

Text, New time-lapse images by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveal the aftermath of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, DART, on September 26, 2022. 

 

Didymos-Dimorphos System. The ejecta cone is labeled in the center of the blue light. Text, Two hours after the impact, Hubble shows debris flying away from the asteroid, forming a mostly hollow cone with long filaments. After 17 hours the pattern changes as the gravitational pull of the companion asteroid twists the cone of debris into a rotating pinwheel shape. 

 

A spot towards the top of the blue glowing section is labeled curved ejecta stream. 

 

Text, Then the pressure of sunlight sweeps the fine debris into a comet-like tail, which temporarily splits in two. A blue tail off of the dot is labeled double tail formation. 

 

Text, Scientists continue studying the data to learn how to best divert a threatening asteroid, should it ever be necessary, and avoid the fate of the dinosaurs. 

 

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