Hubble image archive
Webb View of Dimorphos Ejecta (NIRCam)
This image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument shows Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet in the double-asteroid system of Didymos, about 4 hours after NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) made impact. A tight, compact core and p...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2022
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2022-047-01ge39qqcq52jsf02ryjychh7j
This image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument shows Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet in the double-asteroid system of Didymos, about 4 hours after NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) made impact. A tight, compact core and plumes of material appearing as wisps streaming away from the center of where the impact took place, are visible in the image. Those sharp points are Webb’s distinctive eight diffraction spikes, an artifact of the telescope’s structure.
These observations, when combined with data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, will allow scientists to gain knowledge about the nature of the surface of Dimorphos, how much material was ejected by the collision, and how fast it was ejected.
In the coming months, scientists will use Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) to observe ejecta from Dimorphos further. Spectroscopic data will also provide researchers with insight into the asteroid’s chemical composition.
The observations shown here were conducted in the filter F070W (0.7 microns) and assigned the color red.
NIRCam was built by a team at the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center.
Credits
Science
NASA, ESA, CSA, Cristina Thomas (Northern Arizona University), Ian Wong (NASA-GSFC)
Image Processing
Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
Image Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Dimorphos |
| Object Description | Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) on asteroid Dimorphos |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | This image was created from JWST data from proposal: (C. Thomas) |
| Instrument | JWST>NIRCam |
| Exposure Dates | 26-27 Sept 2022 |
| Filters | JWST>F070W |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | The image is a single exposure acquired by the NIRCam instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope. The color results from assigning a red hue to a monochromatic (grayscale) image. Red: JWST>F070W |
Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov