NASA's asteroid crash captured in dramatic before and after pictures

The space rock may have suffered its worst day of the last 1000 years when a NASA spaceship slammed into it on Sept. 26.

Three minutes after arriving at the scene of the crash, LICIACube took pictures of the impact and debris. If an asteroid threatens to hit the planet in the future, the images will help scientists prepare.

It took less than a day for the first images to be returned and processed. The Italian agency released before and after shots of the DART mission. There are many more images to come.

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Shortly after 7 p.m., the NASA spaceship self-destructed after hitting an asteroid. On September 26th. The crash was part of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test.

It was the first time in history that humans had ever tried to change the path of an asteroid, which was left over from the formation of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago. There could be as many as 15,000 large objects in the solar system that are waiting to be discovered, according to scientists.

Dimorphos, the one NASA just used for target practice, is one of the ancient rocks that pose no threat to Earth. Mass extinctions are the most famous of which wiped out the dinosaurs.

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Scientists don't know if they succeeded in moving Dimorphos for a few months. They need to use telescopes around the world to analyze its new trajectory.

The spaceship was going to be destroyed from the beginning. The mission operations team at the Applied Physics Laboratory tried to keep their distance from their flying machine. When they lost their signal, they cheered.

Ed Reynolds is the project manager at the laboratory.

Side by side you can see the before and after views. Dimorphos, a moonlet, is getting bright after colliding with Didymos.

Left: Before the crash. Credit: ASI / NASA

Right: After the crash. Credit: ASI / NASA

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The LICIACube was deployed fifteen days before the collision to document the impact of the crash.

The little flying instrument is already showing itself to be a scientific success according to the LICIACube science team lead.