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 what the camera's last image will be like: a closeup view of a pair of asteroids, Didymos and Dimorphos.
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.
The DART took the first image on December 7. The APL is a part of NASA.
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 for DART will be reached on September 26, 2022. The Didymos asteroid system does not pose a threat to Earth.
DART was launched on November 24. There's 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 are 4,200 light years away in the second image. The APL is a part of NASA.
The imager on New Horizons inspired the design of the DRACO, a high-resolution camera.
DART's only instrument, DRACO, will capture images of the asteroid Didymos and its moonlet asteroid Dimorphos, as well as support the spacecraft's guidance system to direct DART to its final impact.
The first image taken by DRACO was 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 Didymos asteroid system is depicted in the illustration. The APL is a joint venture between NASA and John's Hopkins University.
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 article was published by Universe Today. The original article can be found here.
