Astronomy Picture of the Day

   [1]Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2023 March 9
    [2]See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest
                        resolution version available.

                              DART vs Dimorphos
            Image Credit: [3]NASA, [4]Johns Hopkins APL, [5]DART

   Explanation: [6]On the first planetary defense test mission from planet
   Earth, the DART spacecraft captured this close-up on 26 September 2022,
   three seconds before [7]slamming into the surface of asteroid moonlet
   Dimorphos. The spacecraft's outline with two long solar panels is
   traced at its projected point of impact between two boulders. The
   larger boulder is about 6.5 meters across. While the DART ([8]Double
   Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft had a mass of some 570 kilograms,
   the estimated mass of Dimorphos, the smaller member of a near-Earth
   binary asteroid system, was about 5 billion kilograms. The direct
   kinetic impact of the spacecraft measurably altered the speed of
   Dimorphos by a fraction of a percent, reducing its 12 hour [9]orbital
   period around its larger companion [10]asteroid 65803 Didymos by about
   33 minutes. [11]Beyond successfully demonstrating a technique to change
   an asteroid's orbit that can prevent future asteroid strikes on planet
   Earth, the planetary-scale impact experiment [12]has given the
   150-meter-sized Dimorphos a [13]comet-like tail of material.

                     Tomorrow's picture: a great nebula
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    Authors & editors: [25]Robert Nemiroff ([26]MTU) & [27]Jerry Bonnell
                                 ([28]UMCP)
          NASA Official: Phillip Newman [29]Specific rights apply.
              [30]NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
                A service of: [31]ASD at [32]NASA / [33]GSFC,
                         [34]NASA Science Activation
                           & [35]Michigan Tech. U.

References

   1. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
   2. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2303/pressdracowithspacecraft1_1.jpg
   3. https://www.nasa.gov/
   4. https://dart.jhuapl.edu/
   5. https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart/dart-news
   6. https://www.nasa.gov/specials/pdco/index.html
   7. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220929.html
   8. https://dart.jhuapl.edu/
   9. https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.02077
  10. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/asteroids/didymos/in-depth/
  11. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-dart-data-validates-kinetic-impact-as-planetary-defense-method
  12. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap221005.html
  13. https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.01700
  14. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230308.html
  15. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
  16. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apsubmit2015.html
  17. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/aptree.html
  18. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search
  19. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html
  20. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod.rss
  21. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/edlinks.html
  22. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html
  23. http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=230309
  24. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230310.html
  25. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  26. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  27. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
  28. http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  29. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  30. https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html
  31. https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  32. https://www.nasa.gov/
  33. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  34. https://science.nasa.gov/learners
  35. http://www.mtu.edu/