NASA DART: Two weeks after the launch of the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) into space, the data regarding the mission has been made available. The satellite has been successful in altering the natural orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos.
This calls for a celebration as, for the first time in history, humans have been able to change the motion and orbit of a celestial object.
The DART mission's success has given humans a glimmer of hope and a fighting chance of survival if a deadly asteroid heads toward Earth in the near future. It has been made possible by the effectiveness of the asteroid deflection technology developed by NASA.
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What Happened After The DART Satellite Collided With The Asteroid Dimorphos?
Before the collision, the moonlet Dimorphos took 11 hours and 55 minutes to orbit its larger parent asteroid, Didymos.
The satellite successfully crashed into the asteroid at 14,000 miles per hour (22,530 kilometers per hour) on September 26.
Since DART's planned collision with Dimorphos, astronomers have been measuring how much time has passed using the telescopes on Earth.
Dimorphos' orbit around Didymos reduced the 11-hour and 55-minute orbit to 11 hours and 23 minutes; a significant reduction of 32 minutes.
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What Will Happen Now?
Scientists are now trying to figure out the efficiency of momentum transfer from DART's impact to its target. This involves an additional examination of the debris left behind. In this case, it is the several tonnes of asteroidal rock ejected and sent into space. The rebound from this debris explosion strengthened DART's push toward Dimorphos substantially.
Nancy Chabot, the coordination lead of the DART mission from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, said, “DART has given us some fascinating data about both asteroid properties and the effectiveness of a kinetic impactor as a planetary defense technology.”
She further added, “The DART team is continuing to work on this rich dataset to fully understand this first planetary defense test of asteroid deflection.”
The photos of Dimorphos from DART's penultimate encounter will now be analyzed by scientists as well as the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube) provided by the Italian Space Agency. These studies will be carried out to determine the asteroid's mass and form.
The Hera project, which is being developed by the European Space Agency (ESA), will conduct extensive surveys of both the moonlet Dimorphos and the asteroid system Didymos in four years. It will also concentrate on the crater created by DART's collision and a precise estimate of Dimorphos' mass.
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