James Webb & Hubble telescopes to observe NASA's DART smashing into an asteroid

The historic collision of NASA's DART spacecraft with an asteroid is just three days away and astronomers are readying themselves to document the impact using ground-based telescopes. Scientists, however, want to leave no stones unturned in photographing the historic collision on September 27 as they are also planning to use their 'eyes' out in space. Free from the atmospheric hindrance of Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble telescope and the Lucy spacecraft will be directed toward the impact location.

DART, short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, was launched on November 21 toward a binary asteroid system. This system consists of two asteroids-- Dimorphos (160 metres across) and Didymos (780 metres across). The smaller asteroid orbits the bigger one and is the target chosen by NASA to test a planetary defense technology.

(Didymos photographed by DART; Image: NASA)

The mission is to intentionally crash the spacecraft into Dimorphos to see if the impact can change its motion and if the technology can be used to Earth from a planet-killing asteroid in the future. The collision is scheduled at 7:14 p.m. EDT on September 26 (4:44 am IST on September 27). You can watch the live telecast of the event on NASA's social media handles. 

Outer space observations of the DART impact

Talking about the observations of the forthcoming impact from space, Nancy Chabot, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and DART coordination lead said that it would offer "a unique opportunity", Space.com reported. The experts, however, stressed that it is unclear how good these observations would be considering some challenges before the telescopes. 

For Webb, photographing the collision would be difficult since the observatory is designed to image incredibly distant objects and not relatively closer ones such as Didymos. About Hubble, the experts said during a conference last week that it would be on the opposite side of the planet but it will begin its observations 15 minutes after the impact. There is a third observatory, Lucy, which will be used by astronomers for the observations. The spacecraft which launched last October is currently on its way to Earth for a fly-by before heading toward Jupiter. 

NASA confident of 'killing' the asteroid

NASA Planetary Defense Officer Lindley Johnson said that he is "highly confident" about the success of the DART mission, New York Post reported. The spacecraft will slam at a speed of over 22,500 km per hour into Dimorphos which would be over 11 million km from Earth at the time of the impact. DART is currently sailing toward its target using its SMARTNAV camera which will shut off a few minutes before the collision.

Last week, the spacecraft has deployed a small Italian Space Agency-made CubeSat named LICIACube that will record the collision from close proximity.