The James Webb and Hubble space telescopes captured the important astronomical event 11 million kilometers from Earth in their own way.
The James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes have together captured the moment of impact of the DART spacecraft against the asteroid Dimorphos last Monday.
On Monday, in the midst of the event, both devices set their sights on humanity’s first planetary defense mission, with images that will help the general investigation of the project.
The same lens for different looks
Both telescopes look at the stars differently. While Hubble captures the phenomena optically, Webb does so from the infrared.
However, the latter is designed for long distances and, although 11 million kilometers away is not a small thing, it is close enough to exploit the full potential of the telescope.
In the views of both telescopes, a column of debris can be seen after the impact of DART against the body of Dimorphos, an asteroid 160 meters in diameter.
On the side of James Webb , NASA points out that they are images that show “a tight and compact nucleus.” In five hours, he took 10 images, and will continue to do so for months to come to help understand the asteroid’s chemistry.
For its part, Hubble used its Wide Field Camera to capture the rocks ejected after the impact.
.@NASAWebb & @NASAHubble caught the DART impact on camera – the 1st time that Webb & Hubble were used to simultaneously observe the same celestial target.
Looking forward to what we’ll learn about #DARTmission from our telescopes on Earth soon. https://t.co/Y0HOAbSkI0 https:/ pic.twitter.com/lgDwOBd7Om
— Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) September 29, 2022
The analyzes begin
NASA emphasizes that these images will allow scientists to determine how many pieces of material left the surface of Dimorphos or if, in fact, it was fine dust from its surface.
In the Hubble images , for example, you see curved lightning, and NASA doesn’t yet know what it is. Likewise, it has been detected that the brightness of the binary system tripled after the impact for at least 8 hours.
At the moment, it has not been confirmed if the orbit of Dimorphos with respect to Didymos, its larger companion, changed or not after the impact.