Neorockers and Dart….Focus on DART – OPTiK
What has the University of Edinburgh being doing for DART? Many things, but let’s focus on DART – OPTiK. The DART – OPTiK team is a collaboration of researchers from the University of Edinburgh, STFC UKRI, Technical University of Kenya and the Turkana Basin Institute. Our Neorocker Colin Snodgrass is part of this team. With support from the Europlanet Coordination of Ground-based
Neorockers and Dart….Focus on University of Padova
What has the University of Padova being doing for DART? Professor Monica Lazzarin from the Department of Physics and Astronomy is DART Team Investigation member and she participates in the international campaign of ground based observations of Didymos and Dimorphos before and after the impact. Other Neorockers in her team are also involved. Fiorangela La Forgia is a member of the
Neorockers and Dart….Focus on CAS
What has Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) being doing for DART? Neorocker Petr Pravec is the "Data Analysis Coordinator". He was in charge of coordinating photometric observations taken during 2015 to 2021, analysis of the obtained light curve data, and doing their light curve decompositions that were input data to the Dimorphos orbit modelling. He does the
Neorockers and Dart….Focus on LICIACUBE
What have Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica INAF and Italian Space Agency ASI being doing for DART? Many things, but let’s focus on LICIACube (Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids). LICIACube is a space mission of ASI, and part of the NASA DART. LICIACube was hosted as secondary spacecraft during all DART’s interplanetary cruise, being then released by its dispenser before the
Neorockers and Dart….Focus on IAC
What has Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) being doing for DART? Neorocker Julia de Leon, planetary scientist at the IAC, is coordinating (together with Dr. Simone Ieva, from INAF) the Characterisation part of the Observations Working Group. Right now, she is not at her office in the Canary Islands, but in Chile, as she will be observing the DART impact
Nearly DART time…
For the first time ever, planetary defence teams are attempting to deliberately collide with a target asteroid, in order to change its speed and path. This is DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), the first ever mission to dedicated to investigating and demonstrating a method of asteroid deflection by changing an asteroid’s motion in space through kinetic impact. It has potentially HUGE
Don’t panic and look up!
Have you watched Don’t look up and are you wondering what would happen in real life with a NEO targeting Earth? Our NEROCKER Ettore Perozzi from the Italian Space Agency can help us understand the difference between fiction and reality. On the one hand, rather than relying on manual calculations performed by a single team of astronomers, in real life, interconnected nets
DART, the first mission to deflect an asteroid, has been launched!
Today is an important day in the asteroid world! NASA’s DART mission has been launched to test an asteroid deflection technique, targeting the Didymos binary asteroid system. Today, the European Space Agency is involved too, as the first signals coming from the space craft will be captured by the ESA’s NNO-2 antenna, measuring 4.5 metres across and located in New Norcia, Western
Osiris-Rex leaves Bennu
Osiris-Rex is coming home. Nasa's robotic prospector reached asteroid Bennu in 2018 and spent two years flying near and around it, before collecting rubble from the surface in October 2020. It is estimated that the spacecraft has collected between 200gr to 400gr of samples, cited as Nasa’s biggest cosmic haul since the Apollo moon rocks. The trip back home started yesterday and
Amazing week for Asteroid research!
This week, NASA’s Osiris-Rex spacecraft completed its “tag-and-go” manoeuvre to collect surface rock from asteroid Bennu. This is an amazing achievement, reported all over the world. We’ve collected some great press articles for you, so you can find out more about this mission and why it is so important: Official NASA Oxiris Rex Page (In English) BBC News “Elation as Nasa's Osiris-Rex probe