- SpaceX launches mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding as cleanup begins
- SpaceX set to launch mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Boeing strike grinds on as latest talks fail to reach agreement
- Iran 'news' sites, hackers target Trump ahead of US election
- US ports brace for potential dockworkers strike
- Japan's speedy, spotless Shinkansen bullet trains turn 60
- US hurricane deaths rise to 44, fears of more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Global stocks mostly rise, cheering Beijing stimulus
- Europe en route for Moon with new simulator, says astronaut Pesquet
- Fireworks forecast if comet survives risky Sun flypast
- Argentina judge orders dictionary to delete pejorative definition of 'Jewish'
- Global stocks rise on rate hopes, Beijing stimulus
- S.African woman turns 118, among the oldest in the world
- UK clears $4 bn AI partnership between Amazon, Anthropic
- Barca fans barred from Champions League away game over racist banner
- Chinese stocks extend surge, Europe higher on Beijing stimulus
- Pope says Church must 'seek forgiveness' for child sexual abuse
- China caps week of 'bazooka' stimulus for ailing economy with rate cut
- Cuts, cash, credit: China bids to jumpstart flagging economy
- France's debt weighs heavier ahead of budget debate
- Iran treads carefully, backing Hezbollah while avoiding war
- Return to sender: waste stranded at sea stirs toxic dispute
- 'Broken' news industry faces uncertain future
- On remote Greek island, migratory birds offer climate clues
- Taken from mother by nuns, victim seeks answers as pope visits Belgium
- China cuts amount banks hold in reserve to boost lending
- Hong Kong, Shanghai extend surge as China optimism boosts markets
- Vietnam president reiterates support for Cuba during official visit
- Drought reduces Amazon River in Colombia by as much as 90%: report
- Stay or go? Pacific Islanders face climate's grim choice
- Florida bracing for 'unsurvivable' Hurricane Helene
- Poverty rises to over 52 percent in Milei's Argentina
- Chloe's see-through look may not be for Kamala Harris
- Champagne houses abuzz over English sparkling wine
- Macron, Trudeau pledge to work for 'decarbonized' economies
- Hurricanes, storms, typhoons... Is September wetter than usual?
- China stimulus, tech optimism boost stock markets
- 'Unsurvivable' Hurricane Helene races towards Florida
- Macron meets Trudeau in Canada as both face political setbacks
- South Korea surges in UN innovation index
- Chloe's see-through look may not be for Kamala
- Floods threaten Niger's historic 'gateway to the desert'
- China economy hopes boost global equities
- Ubisoft shares sink after 'Assassin's Creed' delay
- German economy to shrink again in 2024: think tanks
- Hong Kong's New World Development replaces CEO Adrian Cheng
- Swiss central bank cuts rate again amid strong franc worries
- Germany's BASF to focus on 'core units' in major overhaul
New asteroid strike images show impact 'a lot bigger than expected'
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.
Astronomers rejoiced as NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impactor slammed into its pyramid-sized, rugby ball-shaped target 11 million kilometres (6.8 million miles) from Earth on Monday night.
Images taken by Earth-bound telescopes showed a vast cloud of dust expanding out of Dimorphos -- and its big brother Didymos which it orbits -- after the spaceship hit.
While those images showed matter spraying out over thousands of kilometres, 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.
James Webb and Hubble can offer a view "within just a few kilometres of the asteroids and you can really clearly see how the material is flying out from that explosive impact by DART", Fitzsimmons told AFP.
"It really is quite spectacular," he said.
An image taken by James Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) four hours after impact shows "plumes of material appearing as wisps streaming away from the centre of where the impact took place", according to a joint statement from the European Space Agency, James Webb and Hubble.
Hubble images from 22 minutes, five hours and eight hours after impact show the expanding spray of matter from where DART hit.
- 'Worried there was nothing left' -
Ian Carnelli of the European Space Agency said that the "really impressive" Webb and Hubble images were remarkably similar to those taken by the toaster-sized satellite LICIACube, which was just 50 kilometres from the asteroid after separating from the DART spacecraft a few weeks ago.
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.
"I was really worried there was nothing left of Dimorphos" at first, Carnelli told AFP.
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 metres (33 feet) in diameter.
It now looks like it will be far bigger, Carnelli said, "if there is a crater at all, maybe a piece of Dimorphos was just chunked off."
The true measure of DART's success will be exactly how much it diverted the asteroid's trajectory, so the world can start preparing to defend itself against bigger asteroids that could head our way in the future.
It will likely take Earth-bound telescopes and radars at least a week for a first estimate of how much the asteroid's orbit has been altered, and three or four weeks before there is a precise measurement, Carnelli said.
- 'Huge implications' -
"I am expecting a much bigger deflection than we had planned," he said.
That would have "huge implications in planetary defence because it means that this technique could be used for much larger asteroids", Carnelli added.
"Until today, we thought that the only deflection technique would be to send a nuclear device."
Fitzsimmons said that even if no material had been "flung off" Dimorphos, DART still would still have slightly affected its orbit.
"But the more material and the faster it's moving, the more of a deflection there will have been," he said.
The observations from James Webb and Hubble will help reveal how much -- and how quickly -- matter sprayed from the asteroid, as well as the nature of its surface.
The asteroid impact marked the first time the two space telescopes observed the same celestial body.
Fitzsimmons said the images were "a beautiful demonstration of the extra science you can get by using more than one telescope simultaneously".
P.Schmidt--CPN