DART团队庆祝碰撞成功

In this image from Sept. 26, 2022, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) team, Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, and guests at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory cheer as they receive confirmation of DART’s collision with the asteroid Dimorphos—the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration.

During the spacecraft’s final moments before impact, its Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation imager took four images capturing its terminal approach as Dimorphos increasingly fills the field of view.

The investigation team will now observe Dimorphos using ground-based telescopes to confirm that DART’s impact altered the asteroid’s orbit around Didymos. Researchers expect the impact to shorten Dimorphos’ orbit by about 1%, or roughly 10 minutes; precisely measuring how much the asteroid was deflected is one of the primary purposes of the full-scale test.

Image Credit: NASA/David C. Bowman

在这张2022年9月26日拍摄的照片中，双小行星重定向测试（DART）团队、托马斯·祖布臣博士和约翰·霍普金斯大学应用物理实验室的来宾在收到DART与小行星Dimorphos碰撞的确认消息时欢呼，这是世界上第一个行星防御技术演示。

在航天器撞击前的最后时刻，Didymos侦察和小行星光学导航成像仪拍摄了四张图像，拍摄到了Dimorpos越来越多地占据视野的终端路径。

调查团队现在将使用地面望远镜观察Dimorpos，以确认DART的撞击改变了小行星围绕Didymos的轨道。研究人员预计，撞击将使Dimorphos的轨道缩短约1%，约10分钟；精确测量小行星的偏转程度是全面测试的主要目的之一。

影像来源：NASA/David C. Bowman