Oct 112022
 

The DART mission successfully changed the motion of an asteroid

Prior to impact, it took Dimorphos 11 hours and 55 minutes to orbit its larger parent asteroid Didymos. Astronomers used ground-based telescopes to measure how Dimorphos’ orbit changed after impact.Now, it takes Dimorphos 11 hours and 23 minutes to circle Didymos. The DART spacecraft changed its orbit by 32 minutes.

Initially, astronomers expected DART to be a success if it shortened the trajectory by 10 minutes.

Neato. A pity we didn’t have more spacecraft on-scene to get better bomb damage assessment images in the minutes, hours and days that followed. It kinda seems like the impact really trashed the rubble pile.

 Posted by at 3:09 pm