THE DEEP IMPACT OF DART

[PinkDiamond]

Wow, the hit with DART moved the asteroid a lot further than they thought it would!

THE DEEP IMPACT OF DART: For the first time ever, human tech has altered the orbit of a planetary body. In a media briefing today, NASA reported that the DART spacecraft changed the orbital period of Dimorphos by a whopping 32 minutes when it slammed into the asteroid moon two weeks ago. NASA would have declared the mission a success with only a 73 second change, so this is a huge acomplishment far exceeding expectations. Congratulations to NASA's Planetary Defense Program.

One of the revelations at the briefing was this new image from the Hubble Space Telescope:



It shows a long comet-like tail of debris behind the battered asteroid. The tail is made of fine dust blasted into space by DART's impact. The dust is so fine that individual dust grains can be pushed away from the asteroid by the gossamer pressure of sunlight. This is how comet tails are formed, too.

The Hubble image reveals for the first time that the tail of Dimorphos is splitting in two. Researchers don't yet know why.

In another surprise, NASA announced that recoil of ejecta from the asteroid's surface contributed significantly to the asteroid's orbit change. Previously, mission planners expected the mass of DART alone to play a role.


Above:This image from Italy's LICIACube spacecraft shows plumes of ejecta streaming from Dimorphos immediately after the impact on Sept. 26th.

Dimorphos is only 170 meters across, but its tail stretches 10,000 kilometers into space. These dimensions mean the tail can be seen by large amateur telescopes on Earth. Backyard astronomers can potentially monitor changes such as the continued splitting of the tail and interactions with the solar wind. Right now, Dimorphos is located south of the celestial equator, but it is moving north and will be within range of northern-hemisphere telescopes later this month.

Press Release: NASA Confirms DART Mission Impact Changed Asteroid’s Motion in Space
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa ... -in-space/

More images: NASA DART Imagery Shows Changed Orbit of Target Asteroid
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-dart- ... t-asteroid

https://spaceweather.com/

[SwordfishMining]

Now they know what happens when you push on a cloud of debris. It was interesting on the flash you were looking at the larger of the two bodies from long distance and never saw the tiny one hit, just the poof. Im sure they accounted for what ever mass transferred to the big one in the new orbit computations along with what escaped that little gravity well. This will come in handy one day as impacts are like death and taxes.