{"id":25775,"date":"2023-03-21T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2023-03-21T13:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=25775"},"modified":"2023-03-18T16:29:30","modified_gmt":"2023-03-18T20:29:30","slug":"25775","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=25775","title":{"rendered":"ESO: DART asteroid impact debris analyzed with VLT"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest report from the European Southern Observatory (ESO<\/a>):<\/p>\n

First results from ESO telescopes<\/strong>
\non the aftermath of DART\u2019s asteroid impact<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This series of images, taken with the MUSE instrument on ESO\u2019s Very Large Telescope, shows the evolution of the cloud of debris that was ejected when NASA\u2019s DART spacecraft collided with the asteroid Dimorphos. The first image was taken on 26 September 2022, just before the impact, and the last one was taken almost one month later on 25 October. Over this period several structures developed: clumps, spirals, and a long tail of dust pushed away by the Sun\u2019s radiation. The white arrow in each panel marks the direction of the Sun. Dimorphos orbits a larger asteroid called Didymos. The white horizontal bar corresponds to 500 kilometres, but the asteroids are only 1 kilometre apart, so they can\u2019t be discerned in these images. The background streaks seen here are due to the apparent movement of the background stars during the observations while the telescope was tracking the asteroid pair.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Using ESO\u2019s Very Large Telescope (VLT), two teams of astronomers have observed the aftermath of the collision between NASA\u2019s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft and the asteroid Dimorphos. The controlled impact was a test of planetary defence, but also gave astronomers a unique opportunity to learn more about the asteroid\u2019s composition from the expelled material.<\/p>\n

On 26 September 2022 the DART spacecraft collided with the asteroid Dimorphos in a controlled test of our asteroid deflection capabilities. The impact took place 11 million kilometres away from Earth, close enough to be observed in detail with many telescopes. All four 8.2-metre telescopes of ESO\u2019s VLT in Chile observed the aftermath of the impact, and the first results of these VLT observations have now been published in two papers.<\/p>\n

\u201dAsteroids are some of the most basic relics of what all the planets and moons in our Solar System were created from,\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

says Brian Murphy, a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh in the UK and co-author of one of the studies. Studying the cloud of material ejected after DART\u2019s impact can therefore tell us about how our Solar System formed.<\/p>\n

\u201cImpacts between asteroids happen naturally, but you never know it in advance,\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

continues Cyrielle Opitom, an astronomer also at the University of Edinburgh and lead author of one of the articles.<\/p>\n

\u201cDART is a really great opportunity to study a controlled impact, almost as in a laboratory.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Opitom and her team followed the evolution of the cloud of debris for a month with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument at ESO\u2019s VLT. They found that the ejected cloud was bluer than the asteroid itself was before the impact, indicating that the cloud could be made of very fine particles. In the hours and days that followed the impact other structures developed: clumps, spirals and a long tail pushed away by the Sun\u2019s radiation. The spirals and tail were redder than the initial cloud, and so could be made of larger particles.<\/p>\n