This is the first monumental image from the Double Asteroid Redirection Test. The telescopic camera was able to take its first image after a circular door was opened.
Imagine a closeup view of Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos, the last image of the camera. The goal of DART is to collide with Dimorphos. If everything goes according to plan, this will change the asteroid's motion so that ground-based telescopes can accurately measure any changes.
DART is a planetary defense test. It will show that a spacecraft can autonomously navigate to and perform a hit on a small asteroid. This will test if this is a viable technique.
The target will be reached on Sept. 26, 2022. The Didymos asteroid system does not pose a threat to Earth.
DART was launched on November 24. There is always concern about how the instruments will react to the launch and the extreme temperature shift. NASA said that components of DART's telescopic instrument are sensitive to movements as small as 5 millionths of a meter, which means that even a tiny shift of something in the instrument could be very serious.
All seems to be well with the DRACO camera. Another image was taken on December 10.
The stars in the Starfish Cluster are some 4,200 light years away. NASA/JohnsHopkins APL.
The imager on the New Horizons spacecraft inspired the design of the DRACO high-resolution camera. Remember the excitement of the first close-up images of the dwarf planet, and the subsequent flyby of the Kuiper Belt object, Arrokoth.
DART has only one instrument, DRACO, which will capture images of Didymos and Dimorphos, as well as support the guidance system to direct DART to its final impact.
The first image was taken about 2 million miles from Earth. The image shows a group of stars in the sky near where the constellations of Perseus, Aries and Taurus intersect.
The DART is speeding toward the smaller of the two bodies in the Didymos asteroid system. The Applied Physics Laboratory is part of the NASA.
NASA said the DART navigation team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory used the stars in the image to determine how DRACO was oriented, and the first measurement of how the camera is pointed relative to the spacecraft. The DART team was able to point DRACO at objects of interest, such as the Starfish Cluster, with the help of the measurements in hand.
The stars are 4,200 light years away from Earth. The team captures images with many stars like M38 to help them calibrate how bright an object is and to help them get closer to Didymos.
The image was captured by NASA's DART after it opened the door to its telescopic imager.
