The James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope, two of NASA's Great Observatories, have taken images of a special NASA experiment intended to purposefully smash a spacecraft into a small asteroid in the first-ever in-space test for planetary defence.

For the first time, Webb and Hubble have observed the same celestial target at the same time during these views of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impact.

On September 26, 2022, at 7:14 p.m. EDT, DART purposefully collided with Dimorphos, the moonless asteroid in Didymos' double-asteroid system.

It was the first time the kinetic impact mitigation technology has ever been tested, which involves deploying a spaceship to divert an asteroid that doesn't pose a threat to Earth and change its orbit. A test for safeguarding Earth is called DART.

Observations from Webb and Hubble together will allow scientists to gain knowledge about the nature of the surface of Dimorphos, how much material was ejected by the collision, and how fast it was ejected.

Source: NASA TV