NASA's DART spacecraft successfully collides with asteroid

As the images rolled in from the DART mission as it sped toward an asteroid, one scientist could not take her eyes off the target.

Images from the spacecraft's onboard imager were humanity's first look at the asteroid.

“We will spend the next months and years doing analysis of course our job has just started but it really looks just amazing," she said at a news conference on Monday.

Dimorphos is covered in boulders and Ernst said she suspects it is a "loosely consolidated" rubble pile, similar to some of the other small asteroids they have seen.

Engineers of the DART mission expect images taken of the collision and the aftermath by a brief-case-sized CubeSat within the next coming days, but actual quantitative data on the impact of the mission will take about two months.

CubeSat, a briefcase-size satellite from the Italian Space Agency hitched a ride with DART into space. It detached from the spacecraft on Sept. 11 and was traveling behind to record what happens from a safe perspective.

Three minutes after impact, LICIACube was to fly by Dimorphos to capture images and video of the impact plume and maybe even spy on the impact crater.

She added that some CubeSat images may emerge in the next day or two.

"So we're going to be seeing that data come down soon in the next couple of days and over the next two months we're going to see more information from the investigation team on what period change we actually made."

"It was just joy."

That was how Ed Reynolds, the DART Project manager at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, described the mood inside the mission command center just minutes before the Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission, or DART, was set to hit the asteroid Dimorphos.

The team approached the last 2 minutes — a period of time when they could no longer send commands to the spacecraft — as a special time, he said at a news conference following the mission on Monday.

“You got to enjoy the moment," Reynolds said, describing that the team had practiced "all types of geometries and scenarios" in preparation for the mission.

Elena Adams, the DART mission systems engineer at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, said she was relieved it was over.

After more than 1,000 people working on DART for more than seven years, she said it is "absolutely wonderful to do something this amazing and we are so excited to be done."

NASA and engineers from its DART mission, or the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, are giving a news conference to discuss what they learned from the mission.

Less than an hour ago, a spacecraft intentionally hit an asteroid known as Dimorphos. This was the agency’s first full-scale demonstration of this type of technology on behalf of planetary defense. It was also the first time humans have altered the dynamics of a solar system body in a measurable way, according to the European Space Agency.

While there are currently no asteroids on a direct impact course with Earth right now, there is a large population of near-Earth asteroids – more than 27,000 in all shapes and sizes.

What's next: A few years after the impact, the European Space Agency’s Hera mission will conduct a follow-up investigation of Dimorphos, and the larger asteroid in the system, Didymos.

More images of the impact will be streamed back to Earth in the weeks and months following the collision from a satellite provided by the Italian Space Agency.

Bil Nye tweeted he was in the room with DART mission operations during the spacecraft's journey to collide with Dimorphos.

Rep. Don Beyer, the chairman of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART mission, "a historic success."

The mission was a chance for NASA to test planetary defense technology and, if the orbit of asteroid Dimorphos was changed, it will be the first time humans change the motion of a natural celestial body in space.

He added that "developing the capability to prevent impact is a key long term objective."

Read the tweet:

For the first time in history, NASA is trying to change the motion of a natural celestial body in space. Now that a spacecraft successfully hit the asteroid Dimorphos — the science is just getting started.

To survey the aftermath of the impact, the European Space Agency’s Hera mission will launch in 2024. The spacecraft, along with two CubeSats, will arrive at the asteroid system two years later.

Hera will study both asteroids, measure physical properties of Dimorphos, and examine the DART impact crater and the moon’s orbit, with the aim of establishing an effective planetary defense strategy.

The Italian Space Agency’s Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids, or LICIACube, will fly by Dimorphos to capture images and video of the impact plume as it sprays up off the asteroid and maybe even spy the crater it could leave behind. The mini-satellite will also glimpse Dimorphos’ opposite hemisphere, which DART won’t get to see before it’s obliterated.

The CubeSat will turn to keep its cameras pointed at Dimorphos as it flies by. Days, weeks and months after, we’ll see images and video captured by the Italian satellite that observed the collision event. The first images expected back from LICIACube could show the moment of impact and the plume it creates.

The LICIACube won’t be the only observer watching. The James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Lucy mission will observe the impact. The Didymos system may brighten as its dust and debris is ejected into space, said Statler, the NASA program scientist.

But ground-based telescopes will be key in determining if DART successfully changed the motion of Dimorphos.

DART mission operations erupted in celebration after the spacecraft successfully hit Dimorphos.

A NASA spacecraft has successfully slammed into an asteroid called Dimorphos.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission, or DART, spacecraft has been traveling to reach its asteroid target since launching in November 2021. On Monday, it hit its target going about 13,421 miles per hour.

The spacecraft was about 100 times smaller than Dimorphos, so it didn't obliterate the asteroid. Instead, DART hopes the collision changed the asteroid's speed and path in space. The mission team has compared this collision to a golf cart crashing into one of the Great Pyramids – enough energy to leave an impact crater.

Scientists expect the nudge will shift Dimorphos slightly and make it more gravitationally bound to Didymos, the larger asteroid in the system.

Next steps: Ground-based observatories around the world will be observing the asteroid system as a way to confirm if DART successfully changed the asteroid’s motion. The James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Lucy mission will also observe the aftermath. 

Plus, the European Space Agency’s Hera mission will launch in 2024 to continue to study the impact.

Watch the moment of impact here: