NASA Did an Armageddon and Smashed a Spacecraft into An Asteroid
4 40 terrestrial telescopes also observed the spacecraft’s wreckage
About 40 terrestrial telescopes have also looked at what happened after the event. The Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope in Chile was one of them. It took pictures of the wreckage left by DART’s crash last month. The Chilean telescope caught a tail-like trail of dust and debris stretching at least 6,000 miles from where the crash happened.
Teddy Kareta, an astronomer at the Lowell Observatory who helped record the images, said- “Selfishly, I wanted to take cool pictures. But we mostly wanted to be helpful to the rest of the team.”
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3 Scientists are still unsure how or why the comet-like tail split in two
Scientists are still trying to figure out why the comet-like tail split in two when Hubble took a picture of it last Saturday. Lori Glaze, who is in charge of planetary science at NASA, said, “The learning is going to continue for a long time to come.”
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2 Dimorphos will be monitored from now onwards
Astronomers will use instruments on Earth and in space to monitor and track the first celestial object whose orbit has been changed by humans. NASA’s DART program scientist, Tom Statler, said, “We have a lot of work ahead of us to really understand what happened.”
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1 The research from this will help keep Earth safe from potentially dangerous asteroids
This close analysis will help find the best way to protect the Earth from dangerous asteroids, which is something that can’t be done with most natural disasters. DART has shown that scientists can deflect an asteroid the size of Dimorphos, which could be dangerous. But to deflect an asteroid, it needs to be found first. Telescopes on Earth and future space missions can find asteroids early enough, learn about them, and then target and hit them while they’re still far away from the planet.
Mr. Nelson says, “NASA is trying to be ready for whatever the universe throws at us.”
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