In the compass image, these three panels capture the breakup of the asteroid Dimorphos when it was deliberately hit by NASA's 1,200-pound Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission spacecraft on September 26, 2022. Hubble Space Telescope had a ringside view of the space demolition derby. The top panel, taken 2 hours after impact, shows an ejecta cone of an estimated 1,000 tons of dust.
<p>The center frame shows the dynamic interaction within the asteroid's binary system that starts to distort the cone shape of the ejecta pattern about 17 hours after the impact. The most prominent structures are rotating, pinwheel-shaped features. The pinwheel is tied to the gravitational pull of the companion asteroid, Didymos.
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In the bottom frame Hubble next captures the debris being swept back into a comet-like tail by the pressure of sunlight on the tiny dust particles. This stretches out into a debris train where the lightest particles travel the fastest and farthest from the asteroid. The mystery is compounded when Hubble records the tail splitting in two for a few days.
SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, STScI, Jian-Yang Li (PSI) IMAGE PROCESSING: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
1 March 2023 (upload date)
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2023/006/01GSRCANNBPDB54006BQ4XZ063">Didymos-Dimorphos System After DART Impact—Compass Version</a>