NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission has just returned the first photograph of its objective, the moonlet Dimorphos, as well as the asteroid Didymos that it circles. DART is a planetary defence test mission that will strike the moonlet in order to change its orbit around Didymos. If successful, this spacecraft concept might be scaled up to deflect an Earth-bound asteroid. (Didymos and Dimorphos pose no threat to Earth; they are a testing ground for kinetic impact technologies.)
The photo, which is a composite of 243 distinct photographs, was obtained on July 27 by DART’s only instrument, the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical Navigation (DRACO), and posted on Wednesday (Sept. 7). It depicts Dimorphos and Didymos as a single point of light since the spacecraft was still 20 million miles (32 million kilometres) distant from the asteroids at the time, making them indistinguishable.
image credits: NASA
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