Cape Canaveral, Sept. 30 (US): The world now has stunning new images of this week’s asteroid strike, the first planetary defense test of its kind. On Thursday, NASA released images of the dramatic event captured by the Hubble and Web Space Telescopes.
A few hours later, SpaceX joined NASA in announcing the possibility of studying the possibility of sending a special mission to Hubble, potentially led by a billionaire, to raise the orbit of the aging telescope and extend its life.
Telescopes on all seven continents watched NASA’s Dart spacecraft smash into the harmless space rock, 7 million miles (11 million km) from Earth, in the hope of changing its orbit.
Scientists won’t know the exact change until November. The experimental results are expected to instill confidence in the use of this technique if one day a deadly asteroid is headed our way, according to the Associated Press.
All these images will help scientists learn more about the small asteroid Demorphos, which took the hit and ended up with a large crater. The impact caused streams of rock and dirt to stream into space, appearing as bright rising rays in the latest images.
The brightness of this double system of asteroids — the 525-foot-high Demorphos is actually the small moon around a larger asteroid — tripled in brightness after the collision as seen in Hubble images, according to NASA.
Hubble and Webb will continue to monitor Demorphos and his great companion Didymus over the next several weeks.
Dart’s $325 million mission launched last year. The spacecraft was built and managed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
As for Hubble, NASA officials confirmed Thursday that the 32-year-old observatory is in good shape and may have another decade of life left.
Hubble’s orbit is constantly decaying, but the telescope could have many more years if it were boosted from the current 335 miles (540 km) above Earth to 375 miles (600 km) or more.
The six-month technical feasibility study will also consider the possibility of any parts being replaced, most likely by a crew.
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