NASA’s DART Spacecraft Sets Sights on Asteroid Target
Didymos, the double-asteroid system that contains its target, Dimorphos, was just captured in the first image taken by NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) probe. On September 26, DART will purposefully collide with Dimorphos, the moonlet of the asteroid Didymos. This is humanity's first attempt to use a spacecraft to deflect an asteroid for planetary defense, even though the asteroid poses no threat to Earth. This composite of 243 photos taken on July 27, 2022, by the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical Navigation (DRACO) aboard DART shows the light from the asteroid Didymos and its orbital moonlet Dimorphos. The Didymos system is still quite weak from this distance—roughly 20 million miles from DART—and navigation camera scientists weren't sure if DRACO would be able to see the asteroid yet. However, by combining the 243 images that DRACO captured during this observation series, the team was able to improve it and discover Didymos and identify...