NASA's $330 million Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft has caught its first look at its target asteroid, Didymos, the double-asteroid system that is hurtling toward our planet.

DART is designed to intentionally smash into Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet of Didymos, on Sept. 26. Despite the situation, the double-asteroid system poses no threat to Earth and the DART mission is humanity's first test of the kinetic impact technique, which uses a spacecraft to deflect an asteroid for planetary defense.

NASA's DART Mission

An image was taken by the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO) aboard DART on July 27, 2022. The image of the light from the asteroid Didymos and its orbiting moonlet Dimorphos is a composite of 243 images.

It was taken at a distance of roughly 20 million miles from the spacecraft and showed the Didymos system faintly. Navigation camera experts were uncertain whether or not DRACO would be able to spot the asteroid yet.

However, once the 243 images that were taken during the observation sequence were combined, the team was able to enhance it to reveal Didymos and pinpoint its location in the cosmos, as per SciTechDaily.

Elena Adams, the DART mission systems engineer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, said, "This first set of images is being used as a test to prove our imaging techniques." She added that the quality of the image is similar to what they could obtain from ground-based telescopes.

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However, it was also important to show that DRACO is working properly and can see its target to make any adjustments needed before starting to use the images to guide the spacecraft into the asteroid autonomously.

According to Space, over the next three weeks, the team will use images taken every five hours to make a series of three trajectory correction maneuvers that put DART on a precise path to Didymos. After that, within about 24 hours of impact, DART will take control to fine-tune its final approach.

Striking Asteroids

The DART navigation lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, Julie Bellerose, said, "Seeing the DRACO images of Didymos for the first time, we can iron out the best settings for DRACO and fine-tune the software." She added that in September, they will refine where DART is aiming at by getting a more precise determination of Didymos' location.

The aim of the DART mission is to learn how to deflect asteroids in case one is ever discovered on a collision course with Earth. Scientists will observe DART's impact on Dimorphos' orbit, which will provide crucial information about how well spacecraft can protect our planet from asteroid armageddon.

Professor Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queen's University Belfast, said that it is a fact that asteroids have struck the Earth in the past. These impacts are a natural process and they are going to happen in the future. Fitzsimmons noted that the DART mission also aims to allow humans to stop the worst of these impacts that could lead to loss of life, The Guardian reported.

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