Watch a Live Feed from NASA’s DART Spacecraft on Approach to Asteroid Dimorphos
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) has one single instrument onboard – the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical Navigation, aka the DRACO camera. DRACO serves as the spacecraft’s eye and will guide DART to its final destination: impact with asteroid Dimorphos. The stream you’re watching is a real-time feed from the DART spacecraft enabled through the DRACO camera sending one image per second to Earth. For the DART impact broadcast with commentary, watch: https://youtu.be/4RA8Tfa6Sck In the hours before impact, the screen will appear mostly black, with a single point of light. That point is the binary asteroid system Didymos which is made up of a larger asteroid named Didymos and a smaller asteroid that orbits around it called Dimorphos. As the 7:14 p.m. EDT (23:14 UTC) impact of asteroid Dimorphos nears closer, the point of light will get bigger and eventually detailed asteroids will be visible. At 7:14 p.m., the DART spacecraft is slated to intentionally crash into asteroid Dimorphos. This stream will be delayed due to the time it takes the images to arrive at Earth, plus additional time for feeding the images to various platforms. For the most up-to-date DRACO camera feed, please tune into the NASA DART Impact Broadcast here: https://youtu.be/4RA8Tfa6Sck After impact, the feed will turn black – due to a loss of signal. After about 2 minutes, this stream will turn into a replay – showing the final moments leading up to impact. That replay file will also become available on NASA websites and social media accounts. DART is a spacecraft designed to impact an asteroid as a test of technology. DART’s target asteroid is NOT a threat to Earth. This asteroid system is a perfect testing ground to see if intentionally crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid is an effective way to change its course, should an Earth-threatening asteroid be discovered in the future.
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New Supercomputer Simulation Sheds Light on Moon’s Origin
A new NASA and Durham University simulation puts forth a different theory of the Moon’s origin – the Moon may have formed in a matter of hours, when material from the Earth and a Mars sized-body were launched directly into orbit after the impact. The simulations used in this research are some of the most detailed of their kind, operating at the highest resolution of any simulation run to study the Moon’s origins or other giant impacts. Learn more: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/lunar-origins-simulations Credit: NASA/Durham University/Jacob Kegerreis Music Provided by Universal Production Music: Genosequence by Alessandro Rizzo. This video can be downloaded from the NASA Image and Video Library at: https://images.nasa.gov/details-ARC-20221004-AAV3443-MoonOrigin-Social-NASAWeb-1080p NASA's Ames Research Center is located in California's Silicon Valley. Follow us on social media to hear about the latest developments in space, science, technology, and aeronautics.
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Meet CAPSTONE, NASA’s New Lunar Pathfinder
The Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, will be the first spacecraft to fly a unique orbit around the Moon intended for NASA’s future Artemis lunar outpost Gateway. Its six-month mission will help launch a new era of deep space exploration. Multiple partner businesses contributed to CAPSTONE with support from NASA's small business programs. The spacecraft was built and tested by Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc., a Terran Orbital Corporation, operated and managed by Advanced Space, and will be launched by Rocket Lab USA, Inc. Learn more: http://www:nasa.gov/CAPSTONE Video credit: NASA’s Ames Research Center Music Provided by Universal Production Music: Pillow Talk by Andrew Joseph Carpenter NASA's Ames Research Center is located in California's Silicon Valley.
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