Hubble Time-Lapse of Dimorphos Ejecta

This animated gif combines three of the images NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured after NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) intentionally impacted Dimorphos, a moonlet asteroid in the double asteroid system of Didymos. The animation spans from 22 minutes after impact to 8.2 hours after the collision took place.

As a result of the impact, the brightness of the Didymos-Dimorphos system increased by 3 times. The brightness also appears to hold fairly steady, even eight hours after impact.

Hubble will observe the Didymos-Dimorphos system ten more times over the next three weeks to monitor how the ejecta cloud expands and fades over time.

Hubble observations were conducted in one filter, WFC3/UVIS F350LP, and assigned the color blue.