PHYSICAL PROPERTIES AND COMPOSITION OF PLUME EJECTED FROM DIMORPHOS AFTER DART IMPACT, INVESTIGATED USING LICIACUBE-LUKE RGB COLOR DATA.

NASA's DART mission successfully demonstrated the first test of planetary defense through the kinetic impactor technique on 26th September 2022. The primary target of the mission was Dimorphos, which is the ~151 meters wide satellite in the binary system (65803) Didymos. The ASI CubeSat LICIACube , separated from the DART spacecraft 15 days before the impact, acquired more than 400 images during a fly-by, before and after the moment of DART impact, to witness the success of the mission and acquire images for the analysis of the surface of the two asteroids and the plume produced by the impact. LICIACube close approach [CA] to Dimorphos was about 58 km. One of the LICIACube payloads, the LUKE (LICIACube Unit Key Explorer) camera, was equipped with an RGB Bayer filter for acquiring color data . As a result of the impact, the secondary asteroid Dimorphos decreased its orbital period around the primary Didymos by about 33 minutes with a large amount of ejected material observed by both LICIACube and ground- and space-based telescopes.