Watch a Live Feed from NASA’s DART Spacecraft on Approach to Asteroid Dimorphos (upcoming)

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) has one single instrument onboard – the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical Navigation, aka the DRACO camera. DRACO serves as the spacecraft’s eye and will guide DART to its final destination: impact with asteroid Dimorphos. The stream you'll be watching will be a real-time feed from the DART spacecraft enabled through the DRACO camera sending one image per second to Earth.

In the hours before impact, the screen will appear mostly black, with a single point of light. That point is the binary asteroid system Didymos which is made up of a larger asteroid named Didymos and a smaller asteroid that orbits around it called Dimorphos.

As the 23:14 UTC impact of asteroid Dimorphos nears closer, the point of light will get bigger and eventually detailed asteroids will be visible.

At 23:14 UTC, the DART spacecraft is slated to intentionally crash into asteroid Dimorphos. This stream will be delayed due to the time it takes the images to arrive at Earth, plus additional time for feeding the images to various platforms.

After impact, the feed will turn black – due to a loss of signal. After about 2 minutes, this stream will turn into a replay – showing the final moments leading up to impact. That replay file will also become available on NASA websites and social media accounts.

DART is a spacecraft designed to impact an asteroid as a test of technology. DART’s target asteroid is NOT a threat to Earth. This asteroid system is a perfect testing ground to see if intentionally crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid is an effective way to change its course, should an Earth-threatening asteroid be discovered in the future.

🌐 Stream
@EverythingScience

‍Dimorphos has been precision locked by the DART spacecraft. Impact is in about 15 minutes! Time to see what impacting an asteroid actually does to alter its trajectory.

🌐 Stream
@EverythingScience

Watch the final moments from the DART Mission on its collision course with asteroid Dimporphos.
🌐Video
@EverythingScience

Animation (sped up 500x) from one of LCO Global's 1 meter telescope at SAAO South Africa showing effects of #DARTMission impact into Dimorphos

(Still no threat to the Earth... Long straight streak is camera artifact)
🌐 @astrosnapper
@EverythingScience

⁣Drone startup claims it flew its zero-emissions ion propulsion drone on 4.5-minute test flight

The drone, called Silent Ventus, uses proprietary technology to ionize the oxygen and nitrogen molecules in the surrounding air to create an "ionic wind" that propels the machine in the direction it wants to go. According to Undefined, the drone could be used for cargo.

According to Undefined, its "Air Tantrum" ionic propulsion technology produces up to 150 percent more thrust than current ion thruster technologies.

Earlier this year, the company released footage of a two-and-a-half-minute indoor flight test, saying the drone emitted 85 decibels of noise. Now, it claims it's flown a prototype for four and a half minutes, though it's only released one minute, 17 seconds of footage. The drone firm also says it achieved a noise level below 75 dB.

🌐 Watch test flight

Article
@EverythingScience

"...Liftoff, Americans return to space as Discovery clears the tower"

34 years ago today, September 29th, 1988 at 11:37am, Space Shuttle Discovery launched on STS-26. This marked the first launch of the Shuttle since the tragic Challenger disaster in 1986.

🌐 @NASA_Nerd
@EverythingScience

NASA and SpaceX have signed a space act agreement for a commercial mission to boost the Hubble Space Telescope. This will extend the lifetime of the telescope, and preclude emerging concerns about the need for costly end-of-life disposal.
🌐SciGuySpace
@EverythingScience

What Happens if a Supervolcano Blows Up?

The Earth is a gigantic ball of semi-molten rock, with a heart of iron as hot as the surface of the Sun. Titanic amounts of heat left over from its birth and the radioactive decay of trillions of tons of radioactive elements find no escape but up. Currents of rock spanning thousands of kilometers carry this energy to the surface. Earth’s crust is the only thing in their way. It feels solid to us, but it is only a fragile barrier, an apple skin around a flaming behemoth.

True apocalypses can break through and unleash eruptions tens of times more powerful than all of our nuclear weapons combined, subjecting the climate to centuries worth of change in a single year, while drowning continents in toxic ash and gases: supervolcanoes.

How big can they get? And will they put an end to humanity?

🌐 Video (Kurzgesagt)
@EverythingScience

This is what you’ve waited for.

Journey with us through Webb’s breathtaking view of the Pillars of Creation, where scores of newly formed stars glisten like dewdrops among floating, translucent columns of gas and dust.

‍First, direct your attention to the tips of the pillars, many of which appear tinged with fiery “lava.” Here, young stars periodically shoot out jets of material that collide with the pillars, which can then form wavy patterns. Energetic hydrogen molecules create that red glow.

‍Also near the edges of the pillars are tiny red orbs. These are the baby stars of the show, only a few hundred thousand years old!

#Webb
High-res
🌐@NASAWebb
@EverythingScience

If this majestic landscape looks familiar, you may recognize the original. Here, Hubbles’s iconic view, taken in visible light, is on the left. Webb “sees” in infrared light invisible to our eyes, allowing it to pierce through the dust and reveal stars galore (right).

‍Why go back to where we’ve been before? Webb’s new look identifies far more precise counts of newborn stars, along with the quantities of gas and dust. This will help us build a clearer understanding of how stars form and burst out of these dusty clouds over millions of years.

#Webb
High-res
🌐@NASAWebb
@EverythingScience