NASA’s successful asteroid impact test has caused chaos, as the Associated Press reports, astronomers using the Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR) in Chile have captured an image that reveals that DART’s collision with Dimorphos left a trail of dust and other debris of up to More than 6,000 miles long, it wasn’t just the spacecraft that was responsible – the pressure of the Sun’s radiation pushed the material away as if it was with a comet’s tail.
According to the researchers, the path is likely to become larger, and should eventually extend to the point where the dust stream is almost indistinguishable from the usual particles floating in the solar system, the space agency chose Demorphos (the asteroid moon Didymos) because an intentional collision would not pose a threat to Earth .
The capture was more than just getting a dramatic snapshot, as scientists use data collected with SOAR, the Astronomical Event Observatory Network and other observers to understand more about the collision and the Dimorphos itself. They will determine the amount and speed of material ejected from the asteroid, and whether DART produced large chunks of debris. No or just fine dust, this will help understand how spacecraft can alter the asteroid’s orbit, and possibly improve Earth’s defenses against stray cosmic rocks.