Back

@65dBnoise can someone explain what we're seeing here? is the moving object the DART craft? if so, I didn't think it would be that bright. And what is the "puff" that we're seeing?

@ryan @TerryHancock

What we see is asteroid Didymos and a cloud of dust from the collision of NASA's spacecraft DART with its companion minor-planet moon Dimorphos, which orbits the former at a distance ~1.2km. The dust is obviously from the collision of DART with Dimorphos, but the latter is too small (160 meters, absolute magnitude 21.3) to be seen with that telescope from the Earth, so we only see the much larger Didymos (780 meters, absolute magnitude 18.0)

@RL_Dane Indeed!