The ground-breaking experiment will be watched by an Italian cubesat called LICIACube.
LICIA is a micro-satellite that hitched a ride on DART to the Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid system. The cubesat was put into service on Sunday. It was given LICIACube 15 days to assume a safe position to observe DART's collision with Dimorphos. The impact is a first-of-its-kind experiment designed to alter the orbit of a space rock in a crucial test of a planetary defense concept that could save the lives of millions of people on Earth.
"LICIA will be released from the dispenser on one of DART's external panels, and will be guided (braking and rotating) to start its journey toward DimorphoCubes," said Elena Epifani, an astronomer at Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics. The cubesat will point its cameras towards the asteroid system and possibly take pictures of it.
The DART asteroid- impact mission is explained in pictures.
LICIACube, fitted with two optical cameras, will follow DART towards Dimorphos and eventually settle in to watch the drama from a safe distance. She said that the DART impact will be seen as an increase of the target luminosity by comparing images of Dimorphos taken before and after the impact.
The impact of Dimorphos and Didymos will be about 11 million km away from Earth. Astronomers on Earth will not be able to see the impact, but they will be able to observe the system over the next few weeks to see if the impact will be visible. When the two asteroids eclipse each other, they will measure the intervals between the periods of brief dimming that occur.
Observers might be able to confirm that the experiment worked, but they wouldn't give any details of the impact. LICIA will move closer to inspect the scene after DART crashes into DimorphoCubes.
LICIA will perform a 'fast fly-by' around 3 minutes after DART impact at a minimum distance of about 55 km from Dimorphos' surface. The image acquisition by the two cameras onboard will be almost continuous for around 10 minutes and will be devoted to the target impact and non- impact sides.
It may take weeks to get all the data down after LICIACube sends the images to Earth.
It's important to understand the effects of DART's impact on Dimorphos in depth as a similar system might be needed one day. The impact of one the size of Didymos could be felt around the world, while an asteroid the size of Dimorphos could cause a continental destruction.
Astronomers know a lot about the near-Earth asteroids, but they don't know much about the potentially hazardous rocks. Scientists can only guess how the surface will behave upon impact because they don't know the density of the material.
The team behind NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, which touched down on the near- Earth asteroid Bennu in October 2020, experienced firsthand the pitfalls of these unknowns. Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator, described the asteroid's soft surface as a huge wall of debris that could easily have destroyed the spaceship.
When the incident was announced, Lauretta, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, told Space.com that it was more difficult than thought because soft- surfaced asteroids could absorb the impact.
The team behind DART doesn't know much about Dimorphos compared to the team behind OSIRIS-REx. The first detailed views of DimorphoCubes will be captured by DART itself before the impact and later by LICIA.
We know the surface properties of Didymos, but we don't know much about Dimorphos, which is too small to have an effect on the main body. We assume from theoretical models that Dimorphos is similar to Didymos, but we don't know much about the degree of cohesion of surface materials, the size of the surface debris, or so on.
Dimorphos is a conglomeration of boulders and dirt that broke off from the main asteroid Didymos and is now held together by the force of gravity, according to scientists. The force is not very strong since the asteroid is small. Astronomers don't understand the impact that DART will have, how much matter it will throw up, and how big a crater it will leave behind.
With the help of DART and LICIA, we will be able to investigate the nature and evolution of a near- Earth asteroid.
Scientists will be able to predict the effects of future interventions on similar asteroids if they have more information.
The Italian Space Agency, which oversees the LICIA mission, is currently evaluating plans to extend the mission to conduct other studies.
The Italian space industry has contributed to some of the most high-profile European space projects such as the European Columbus module of the International Space Station. One of the cubesats hitching a ride to the moon on NASA's Artemis 1 mission is still waiting for lift off because of a fuel leak.
"LICIACube is not only the first mission in deep space that Italy will operate, but it is also the first fully designed, realized and managed in Italy, including data reception and management," he said.
Italy stepped in to fill the gap caused by budget approval delays in the European Space Agency's HERA mission, which was supposed to arrive at the Didymos-Dimorphos duo before the DART impact. The HERA will not reach Didymos before the year 2077.
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