The Italian House Company’s cubesat, dubbed LICIACube, was launched because the DART spacecraft neared its asteroid goal. The tiny companion satellite tv for pc captured spectacular pictures of the change in Dimorphos’ brightness because the DART probe smacked into the house rock’s floor, making a plume of ejected materials.
Argotec, the Turin-based engineering agency that constructed LICIACube, tweeted Tuesday: “That is precisely the place the #NASA #DartMission ended. An unbelievable emotion, the start of latest discoveries.”
A couple of minutes after the cosmic spectacle, LICIACube flew inside 35 miles of Dimorphos, snapping images of the end result. The primary images have been beamed again to Earth at 4:23 a.m. native time in Italy, in line with the Italian House Company.
NASA confirmed Monday that the DART mission was successful, however it might take as much as a number of weeks to observe for adjustments within the asteroid’s trajectory. The aim was to shave a number of minutes off Dimorphos’ practically 12-hour orbit round Didymos.
