The James Webb and Hubble telescopes on Thursday revealed their first images of a spacecraft deliberately smashing into an asteroid, as astronomers indicated that the impact looks to have been much greater than expected.
The world's telescopes turned their gaze towards the space rock Dimorphos earlier this week for a historic test of Earth's ability to defend itself against a potential life-threatening asteroid in the future.
While those images showed matter spraying out over thousands of kilometers, the James Webb and Hubble images"zoom in much closer", said Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queen's University Belfast involved in observations with the ATLAS project. The images depict an impact that looks"a lot bigger than we expected," said Carnelli, the manager of the ESA's Hera mission which intends to inspect the damage in four years.The Hera mission, which is scheduled to launch in October 2024 and arrive at the asteroid in 2026, had expected to survey a crater around 10 meters in diameter.
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
James Webb and Hubble telescope images capture DART asteroid collision | EngadgetIt was the first time the telescopes have observed the same celestial target simultaneously..
Read more »
Hubble and James Webb Space Telescope spot plume from DART struck asteroidThis is the very first time humans have ever intentionally collided a spacecraft with an asteroid
Read more »
DART asteroid crash seen by James Webb, Hubble space telescopes (photos)Tereza is a London-based science and technology journalist, aspiring fiction writer and amateur gymnast. Originally from Prague, the Czech Republic, she spent the first seven years of her career working as a reporter, script-writer and presenter for various TV programmes of the Czech Public Service Television. She later took a career break to pursue further education and added a Master's in Science from the International Space University, France, to her Bachelor's in Journalism and Master's in Cultural Anthropology from Prague's Charles University. She worked as a reporter at the Engineering and Technology magazine, freelanced for a range of publications including Live Science, Space.com, Professional Engineering, Via Satellite and Space News and served as a maternity cover science editor at the European Space Agency.
Read more »
James Webb telescope reveals the 'bones' of a distant galaxy in stunning new imageThe new image will be compared to an older one captured by Hubble to help scientists learn more about the structure and composition of spiral galaxies
Read more »
James Webb Space Telescope spots 'Sparkler Galaxy' that could host universe's 1st starsRobert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.’s Open University. Follow him on Twitter sciencef1rst.
Read more »
James Webb telescope captures mind-blowing image of a spiral galaxy’s ‘skeleton’James Webb has captured a new image of a galaxy's skeleton, offering new insight into the makeup of spiral galaxies.
Read more »