🚀 Here’s how the DART impact also distorted the asteroid Dimorphos

2024-04-04 11:00:10

NASA’s DART mission changed the orbit but also the shape of the asteroid Dimorphos.

A study led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has revealed that the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission not only changed the movement of the asteroid Dimorphos but also its shape. The impact took place on September 26, 2022, marking an important milestone in the demonstration the ability to deflect a potentially dangerous asteroid.

The Dimorphos asteroid captured by NASA’s DART mission two seconds before the craft impacted its surface on September 26, 2022. Observations before and after the impact suggest it is a “pile of debris” not very compact.
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL

Before the impact, Dimorphos, which orbits a larger asteroid named Didymos, had an oblate spheroid shape, similar to a flattened ball. Its loop around Didymos, at a distance of about 1,189 meters, took 11 hours and 55 minutes. “When DART hit, the situation became very interesting,” says Shantanu Naidu, engineer in navigation at JPL, who led the study. “The orbit of Dimorphos is no longer circular: its orbital period” – the time required to complete a single orbit – “is now reduced by 33 minutes and 15 seconds. And the entire shape of the asteroid changed from a relatively symmetrical object to a ‘ellipsoid triaxial’ – more elongated.”

Computer modeling, supported by data collected by DART, NASA’s Goldstone solar radar array and ground-based telescopic observations, helped clarify these changes. The impact not only shortened Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos but also changed its shape, transforming it into a more elongated object.

This orbital evolution shows a significant decrease in the average distance between the two asteroids, indicating that Dimorphos is now about 37 meters closer to Didymos than before the impact. These results confirm that Dimorphos is a loosely packed “debris pile”, a feature similar to the asteroid Bennu.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera mission, scheduled for October 2024, will visit the asteroid pair to carry out a detailed study and confirm how DART reshaped Dimorphos.

This study is not only a step toward asteroid deflection technology; it also offers new understanding fundamental asteroids and their behavior.

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