The Planetary Science Journal (Jan 2024)

Near-infrared Spectral Homogeneity of the Didymos System Before and After the DART Impact

  • Simone Ieva,
  • E. Mazzotta Epifani,
  • E. Dotto,
  • V. Petropoulou,
  • J. D. P. Deshapriya,
  • P. H. Hasselmann,
  • G. Poggiali,
  • D. Perna,
  • M. Dall’Ora,
  • A. Lucchetti,
  • M. Pajola,
  • S. L. Ivanovski,
  • A. Rossi,
  • J. R. Brucato,
  • P. Palumbo,
  • V. Della Corte,
  • A. Zinzi,
  • C. A. Thomas,
  • J. de León,
  • T. Kareta,
  • N. Moskovitz,
  • N. L. Chabot,
  • A. S. Rivkin,
  • M. Amoroso,
  • I. Bertini,
  • A. Capannolo,
  • S. Caporali,
  • M. Ceresoli,
  • G. Cremonese,
  • I. Gai,
  • L. Gomez-Casajus,
  • E. Gramigna,
  • G. Impresario,
  • R. Lasagni Manghi,
  • M. Lavagna,
  • M. Lombardo,
  • D. Modenini,
  • S. Pirrotta,
  • P. Tortora,
  • F. Tusberti,
  • M. Zannoni,
  • G. Zanotti

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/ad793e
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5, no. 10
p. 225

Abstract

Read online

We spectroscopically characterized the Didymos system, target of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)/Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube) space mission, close in time to the DART impact event, during six nights between 2022 August and November at Telescopio Nazionale Galileo. Here, we show that near-infrared (NIR) spectra (0.75–2.25 μ m) look mostly similar within the same night and between different nights. They are in good agreement with the only spectrum previously available in the literature, observed almost 20 years before those reported in this paper. During one of the observing nights we also obtain spectroscopy information on the ejecta tail induced by the DART impact. The spectrum of the ejecta tail is also very similar to Didymos/Dimorphos itself. All of these aspects seem to suggest that the Didymos system in the NIR looks mostly homogeneous, with very subtle spectral variations.

Keywords