Tag Archives: Hubble Space Telescope

NASA’s DART spacecraft impact measurably redirected the asteroid Dimorphos

March 4, 2023All Posts, Planetary science, Spacecraft and MissionsDART, Didymos, Dimorphos, Double Asteroid Redirection Test, European Space Agency, Hubble Space Telescope, Italian Space Agency, Johns Hopkins APL, LICIACube, NASA, planetary defensePeter Lobner

Peter Lobner, updated 28 July 2023

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which was launched on 24 November 2021, was the first test of a technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards. DART’s target was the small “moonlet” named Dimorphos orbiting the larger near-Earth asteroid Didymos, which itself is only a half mile in diameter. You can explore at the Didymos – Dimorphos binary system on NASA’s Solar System Exploration webpage here: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/asteroids/didymos/in-depth/

*Simulation of the Didymos – Dimorphos binary system.*
*Source: NASA’s Solar System Exploration*

*Actual view of the Didymos – Dimorphos binary system as*
*DART approached impact with Dimorphos (background).*
*Source: NASA / JHAPL*

The goal is for the DART spacecraft was to strike the moonlet Dimorphos at high speed while being trailed by another small spacecraft, the Italian Space Agency’s (ASI) cubesat, dubbed LICIACube, that would directly observe the encounter and report back to NASA and ASI.

By comparing pre- and post-impact measurements made with powerful Earth-based and orbiting telescopes, the NASA / Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (JHAPL) team could determine what changes occurred to Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos. These results will help assess the feasibility of using a high-energy impactor as a tool for deflecting the trajectory of an asteroid, particularly one that represents a significant risk to Earth. Learn more about the DART spacecraft and its mission objectives on NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office website here: https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart/dart-news

NASA successfully guided DART to a collision with Dimorphos on 26 September 2022. You can watch the final five minutes of DART’s approach to the Didymos – Dimorphos binary system up to the final image before impact here: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/dart-s-final-images-prior-to-impact

*DART closeup image of Dimorphos moments before impact.*
*Source: NASA / JHAPL*

ASI’s LICIACube image just before its closest approach to Dimorphos (background). The debris plume cast off from Dimorphos after DART’s impact is clearly visible. Didymos is in the foreground. Source: ASI / NASA

The Hubble Space Telescope was used to capture images of the impact. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope team reported:

“The Hubble movie starts at 1.3 hours before impact. The first post-impact snapshot is 20 minutes after the event. Debris flies away from the asteroid in straight lines, moving faster than four miles per hour (fast enough to escape the asteroid’s gravitational pull, so it does not fall back onto the asteroid). The ejecta forms a largely hollow cone with long, stringy filaments.

At about 17 hours after the impact the debris pattern entered a second stage. The dynamic interaction within the binary system started to distort the cone shape of the ejecta pattern. The most prominent structures are rotating, pinwheel-shaped features. The pinwheel is tied to the gravitational pull of the companion asteroid, Didymos.

Hubble next captures the debris being swept back into a comet-like tail by the pressure of sunlight on the tiny dust particles. This stretches out into a debris train where the lightest particles travel the fastest and farthest from the asteroid. The mystery is compounded later when Hubble records the tail splitting in two for a few days.”

*8 October 2022 photo by the Hubble Space Telescope shows Dimorphos with its debris tail. Source: NASA/ESA/STScI/Hubble*

The results are in, and on 1 March 2023, the NASA / JHAPL team reported a much greater change to Dimorphos’ orbit than originally expected.

“…the investigation team, led by Cristina Thomas of Northern Arizona University, arrived at two consistent measurements of the period change from the kinetic impact: 33 minutes, plus or minus one minute. This large change indicates the recoil from material excavated from the asteroid and ejected into space by the impact (known as ejecta) contributed significant momentum change to the asteroid, beyond that of the DART spacecraft itself.”

After the success of the DART mission, maybe the U.S. Planetary Defense Officer will have fewer sleepless nights, but this is only the first small, but successful step toward an operational planetary defense system.

28 June 2023 update: Hubble sees bolder swarm surrounding Dimorphos

In June 2023, NASA reported that the Hubble Space Telescope had observed a swarm of 37 boulders that appears to have been knocked loose from Dimorphos upon impact.

An image of the impacted asteroid, Dimorphos, with drawn-in circles around the areas where boulders have been detected. Note that the relationship between north and east on the sky (as seen from below) is flipped relative to direction arrows on a map of the ground (as seen from above). Source: NASA, ESA, David Jewitt (UCLA); Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

NASA reported:

“The 37 free-flung boulders range in size from three feet to 22 feet across, based on Hubble photometry. They are drifting away from the asteroid at little more than a half-mile per hour – roughly the walking speed of a giant tortoise. The total mass in these detected boulders is about 0.1% the mass of Dimorphos…… The boulders are most likely not shattered pieces of the diminutive asteroid caused by the impact. They were already scattered across the asteroid’s surface, as evident in the last close-up picture taken by the DART spacecraft just two seconds before collision, when it was only seven miles above the surface.”

The loose composition of the surface of Dimorphos can be seen in this last complete image just prior to DART impact. Source: NASA, APL

For more information

“DART’s Final Images Prior to Impact,” NASA, 26 September 2022: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/dart-s-final-images-prior-to-impact
“NASA DART Imagery Shows Changed Orbit of Target Asteroid,” NASA, 11 October 2022: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-dart-imagery-shows-changed-orbit-of-target-asteroid
Justyna Surowiec, “NASA’s DART Data Validates Kinetic Impact as Planetary Defense Method,” NASA / Johns Hopkins APL press release, 1 March 2023: https://dart.jhuapl.edu/News-and-Resources/article.php?id=20230301
“Remember the DART impact? Hubble Made a Movie of the Debris,” Universe Today, 1 March 2023: https://www.universetoday.com/160346/remember-the-dart-impact-hubble-made-a-movie-of-the-debris/
Tatyana Woodall, “What NASA’s successful DART mission means for the future of planetary defense,” Popular Science, 27 September 2022: https://www.popsci.com/science/nasa-dart-asteroid-planetary-defense-future/
“Hubble Sees Boulders Escaping from Asteroid Dimorphos,” NASA press release, 20 July 2023: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/hubble-sees-boulders-escaping-from-asteroid-dimorphos
Monisha Ravisetti, “Hubble telescope spies cloud of space rocks created by DART asteroid impact,” Space.com, 20 July 2023: https://www.space.com/hubble-telescope-nasa-dart-mission-asteroid-space-boulders

Videos

“Hubble Captures Movie of DART Asteroid Impact Debris,” (0.19 min), posted by HubbleWebbESA, 1 March 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6JlF-1zmls&t=1s
“NASA’s DART Mission Confirms Crashing Spacecraft into Asteroids Can Deflect Them,” (1.47 min), posted by NASA, 1 March 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMu5bNadlGo

Webb Space Telescope Provides an Extraordinary View of the Planet Neptune

October 22, 2022All Posts, Astronomy, Spacecraft and MissionsChandra X-Ray Observatory, European Southern Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, Jet Propulsion Laaboratory, JPL, Keck-1, NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Neptune, Very Large Telescope, Voyager 2, Webb space telescopePeter Lobner

Peter Lobner

In April 2021, I posted a short article entitled, “Multi-messenger Astronomy Provides Extraordinary Views of Uranus,” which included two composite views of Uranus, created by combining near-infrared images taken by the Keck-1 telescope at an elevation of 4,145 meters (13,599 ft) on Maunakea, Hawaii, with X-ray images taken with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) aboard the orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

Now, the Webb Space Telescope has taken stunning near-infrared images of the next, and outermost, planet in our solar system, Neptune (sorry, Pluto). You can read NASA’s 21 September 2022 news release on these images here: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/new-webb-image-captures-clearest-view-of-neptune-s-rings-in-decades

The Webb images of Neptune, taken on July 12, 2022, are reproduced below.

NASA: “Webb captured seven of Neptune’s 14 known moons: Galatea, Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Proteus, Larissa, and Triton. Neptune’s large and unusual moon, Triton, dominates this Webb portrait of Neptune as a very bright point of light sporting the signature diffraction spikes seen in many of Webb’s images.”
Source: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

NASA: “…image of Neptune……brings the planet’s rings into full focus for the first time in more than three decades. The most prominent features of Neptune’s atmosphere in this image are a series of bright patches in the planet’s southern hemisphere that represent high-altitude methane-ice clouds. More subtly, a thin line of brightness circling the planet’s equator could be a visual signature of global atmospheric circulation that powers Neptune’s winds and storms. Additionally, for the first time, Webb has teased out a continuous band of high-latitude clouds surrounding a previously-known vortex at Neptune’s southern pole.” Source: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) has created a Resource Gallery of Webb Space Telescope images, which you can browse here: https://webbtelescope.org/resource-gallery/images. Currently there are 280 images in the Webb Resource Gallery. I think this is a website worth revisiting from time to time.

NASA’s Solar System Exploration website provides views of Neptune from several earlier sources, including the 1989 Voyager 2 deep space probe, the Hubble Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT). Check it out here: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/neptune/galleries/

2018: The following image was taken in July 2018 during the testing of the narrow-field, adaptive optics mode of the optical/infrared MUSE/GALACSI instrument on ESO’s VLT, which is located at an elevation of 2,635 m (8,645 ft) at Cerro Paranal, in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.

*2018 VLT image of Neptune. The corrected image is sharper than a comparable image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Source: ESO/P. Weilbacher (AIP)*

1994: The more recent Webb Space Telescope and VLT images are much better than the Hubble Space Telescope optical-range images of Neptune taken more than two decades earlier, in 1994.

NASA: “The images were taken in 1994 on October 10 (upper left), October 18 (upper right), and November 2 (lower center). Hubble is allowing astronomers to study Neptune’s dynamic atmosphere with a level of detail not possible since the 1989 flyby of the Voyager 2 space probe. Building on Voyager’s initial discoveries, Hubble is revealing that Neptune has a remarkably dynamic atmosphere that changes over just a few days. The temperature difference between Neptune’s strong internal heat source and its frigid cloud tops (-260 degrees Fahrenheit) might trigger instabilities in the atmosphere that drive these large-scale weather changes. In addition to hydrogen and helium, the main constituents, Neptune’s atmosphere is composed of methane and hydrocarbons, like ethane and acetylene.” Source: NASA, JPL, STScI

1989: In October 1989, the following whole planet view of Neptune was produced using images taken through the green and orange filters on the narrow angle camera during the Voyager 2 spacecraft flyby of the planet.

NASA: “This picture of Neptune was taken by Voyager 2 less than five days before the probe’s closest approach of the planet on Aug. 25, 1989. The picture shows the “Great Dark Spot” — a storm in Neptune’s atmosphere — and the bright, light-blue smudge of clouds that accompanies the storm”.
*Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech (1989)*

In the future, we can hopefully look forward to more detailed multi-messenger images of Neptune, combining the near-infrared images from Webb with images from other observatories that can view the planet in different spectral bands.

For more information

“New Webb Image Captures Clearest View of Neptune’s Rings in Decades,” NASA press release, 21 September 2022: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/new-webb-image-captures-clearest-view-of-neptune-s-rings-in-decades
“30 Years Ago: Voyager 2’s Historic Neptune Flyby,” NASA, 21 August 2019: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/30-years-ago-voyager-2s-historic-neptune-flyby

Video

“Voyager 2’s Neptune footage from space 1989.” Posted by Daniel Izzo, 22 April 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCrsBoasg3w

Remarkable Multispectral View of Our Milky Way Galaxy

March 6, 2016All Posts, Astronomy, Astrophysics, Spacecraft and MissionsATLASGAL, Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, ESA, ESO, European Southern Observatory, European Space Agency, Herschel Space Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, In Search of the Lost Chord, Milky Way, Moody Blues, Multi-messenger, NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Plank, Spitzer Space TelescopeDrummer

Peter Lobner, updated 18 August 2023

Album Album cover art credit: Deram Records

Some of you may recall the following lyrics from the 1968 Moody Blues song, “The Word,” by Graeme, Edge, from the album “In Search of the Lost Chord”:

This garden universe vibrates complete

Some, we get a sound so sweet

Vibrations reach on up to become light

And then through gamma, out of sight

Between the eyes and ears there lie

The sounds of color and the light of a sigh

And to hear the sun, what a thing to believe

But it’s all around if we could but perceive

To know ultraviolet, infrared and X-rays

Beauty to find in so many ways

On 24 February 2016, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Consortium announced that it has completed the ATLASGAL Survey of the Milky Way. The survey mapped the entire galactic plane visible from the southern hemisphere at sub-millimeter wavelengths, between infrared light and radio waves, using the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX) telescope located at 5,100 meters (16,732 ft.) above sea level in Chile’s Atacama region. The southern sky is particularly important because it includes the galactic center of our Milky Way. The Milky Way in the northern sky has already been mapped by the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, which is a sub-millimeter wavelength telescope at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii.

The new ATLASGAL maps cover an area of sky 140 degrees long and 3 degrees wide. ESO stated that these are the sharpest maps yet made, and they complement those from other land-based and space-based observatories. The principal space-based observatories are the following:

European Space Agency’s (ESA) Plank satellite: Mission on-going, mapping anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background at microwave and infrared frequencies.
ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory: Mission on-going, conducting sky surveys in the far-infrared and sub-millimeter frequencies.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Spitzer Space Telescope: Mission on-going, conducting infrared observations and mapping as described in my 1 April 2015 post.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope: Mission on-going, observing and mapping at ultraviolet, optical, and infrared frequencies.
NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory: Mission on-going, observing and mapping X-ray sources.
NASA’s Compton Gamma Ray Observatory: Mission ended in 2000. Observed and mapped gamma ray and x-ray sources.

ESO reported that the combination of Planck and APEX data allowed astronomers to detect emission spread over a larger area of sky and to estimate from it the fraction of dense gas in the inner galaxy. The ATLASGAL data were also used to create a complete census of cold and massive clouds where new generations of stars are forming.

You can read the ESO press release at the following link:

https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1606/

Below is a composite ESO photograph that shows the same central region of the Milky Way observed at different wavelengths.

Source: ESO/ATLASGAL consortium/NASA/GLIMPSE consortium/VVV Survey/ESA/Planck/D. Minniti/S. Guisard. Acknowledgement: Ignacio Toledo, Martin Kornmesser

The top panel shows compact sources of sub-millimeter radiation detected by APEX as part of the ATLASGAL survey, combined with complementary data from ESA’s Planck satellite, to capture more extended features.

The second panel shows the same region as seen in shorter, infrared wavelengths by the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope

The third panel shows the same part of sky again at even shorter wavelengths, the near-infrared, as seen by ESO’s VISTA infrared survey telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. Regions appearing as dark dust tendrils in the third panel show up brightly in the ATLASGAL view (top panel).

The bottom panel shows the more familiar view in visible light, where most of the more distant structures are hidden from view

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center also created a multispectral view of the Milky Way, which is shown in the following composite photograph of the same central region of the Milky Way observed at different wavelengths.

Source: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Starting from the top, the ten panels in the NASA image cover the following wavelengths.

Radio frequency (408 MHz)
Atomic hydrogen
Radio frequency (2.5 GHz)
Molecular hydrogen
Infrared
Mid-infrared
Near-infrared
Optical
X-ray
Gamma ray

The Moody Blues song, “The Word,” ends with the following lyrics:

Two notes of the chord, that’s our full scope

But to reach the chord is our life’s hope

And to name the chord is important to some

So they give it a word, and the word is “Om”

While “Om” (pronounced or hummed “ahh-ummmm”) traditionally is a sacred mantra of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist religions, it also may be the mantra of astronomers as they unravel new secrets of the Milky Way and, more broadly, the Universe. I suspect that completing the ATLASGAL Survey of the Milky Way was an “Om” moment for the many participants in the ESO Consortium effort.

For more information

Video: “Close look at the ATLASGAL image of the plane of the Milky Way,” (8:10 minutes), European Southern Observatory, 24 February 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip3YHk0gu0I
“The Multiwavelength Milky Way,” NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: https://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/archive/mwmw/index.html
“Multiwavelength Milky Way Product Page,” NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: https://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/archive/mwmw/mmw_product.html
Video: “The Milky Way’s Invisible Light,” NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 16 January 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls_YNrW1Bcg

Hubble Space Telescope 25th Anniversary Didn’t Come Easily

April 29, 2015All Posts, Astronomy, Spacecraft and MissionsHubble 25th anniversary, Hubble servicing missions, Hubble Space Telescope, NASADrummer

Peter Lobner

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched on 24 April 1990 by the space shuttle Discovery on mission STS-31, and was deployed into orbit on 25 April. You can find details on the design of Hubble at the following link:

http://hubblesite.org/the_telescope/

During system checkout, it was determined that a design error had been made and Hubble’s primary optics suffered from spherical aberration. This optical problem was corrected in 1993 on Servicing Mission 1 (SM1), which also resolved several other issues. Over Hubble’s 25 year operating life, five servicing missions were conducted by space shuttle astronauts.

SM-1 – launched 2 Dec 1993, shuttle Endeavour
SM-2 – launched 11 Feb 1997, shuttle Discovery
SM-3A – launched 19 Dec 1999, shuttle Discovery
SM-3B – launched 1 Mar 2002, shuttle Columbia
SM-4 – launched 11 May 2009, shuttle Atlantis

The Hubble today is quite a different machine than the one launched in 1990. You can see details of each servicing mission at the following NASA website:

http://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/archive/hubble/overview/timeline.html

NASA’s Hubble mission website is at the following link:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/index.html

Here you have access to details about Hubble’s 25-year mission, including an extensive photo gallery. NASA’s official photo to commemorate the 25th anniversary is the following photo of the Westerlund 2 star cluster taken by Hubble’s near-infrared Wide-Field Camera 3, which was installed during SM-4.

Source: NASA