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To ensure sharp images, the last trajectory correction was executed 4 minutes before impact and the thrusters were deactivated afterwards. [73] Compiled timelapse of DART's final 5.5 minutes until impact. The last full image, transmitted two seconds before impact, has a spatial resolution of about 3 centimeters per pixel.
Before the impact by DART, Dimorphos had a shape of an oblate spheroid with a surface covered in boulders but virtually no craters. [16] The moon is thought to have formed when Didymos shed its mass due to its rapid rotation, which formed an orbiting ring of debris that conglomerated into a low-density rubble pile that became Dimorphos today.
It communicates directly with Earth, sending back images of the ejecta and plume of DART's impact as well as having done asteroidal study during its flyby of the Didymos system from a distance of 56.7 km (35.2 mi), 165 seconds after DART's impact. [5] LICIACube is the first purely Italian autonomous spacecraft in deep space.
NASA's DART mission was a success. Images taken by satellite show plumes from the asteroid impact, but it could take weeks to monitor for changes in the asteroid’s trajectory.
Both Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos are visible at the start of the movie. At the end, Dimorphos fills the field of view. The final image in the movie shows a patch of Dimorphos that is 51 feet 16 meters) across. DART's impact occurred during transmission of the final image to Earth, resulting in a partial picture at the end of this movie.
[28] [29] [30] It was accompanied by the Italian Space Agency's (ASI) six-unit LICIACube flyby Cubesat that was released 15 days before impact to observe the asteroid and DART's impact. [31] DART was the first spacecraft to intentionally target and successfully visit an asteroid known to have a minor-planet moon (The binary asteroid 2000 DP 107 ...
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Infographic showing the effect of DART's impact on the orbit of Didymos B with deployment of LICIACube. Initially, Hera 's role was to be realized by a much larger spacecraft called Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM), [12] that would have observed the plume, the crater, and the freshly exposed material to provide unique information for asteroid deflection, science and mining communities.