NASA's DART spacecraft slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos during last September's first test of a planetary defense system, changing the rocky oblong-shaped object's path a bit more than previously calculated.
slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos at a spot between two boulders during last September's first test of a planetary defense system, sending debris hurtling into space and changing the rocky oblong-shaped object's path a bit more than previously calculated.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft collided on Sept. 26 at about 14,000 miles per hour into Dimorphos, an asteroid about 490 feet in diameter, roughly 6.8 million miles from Earth. Dimorphos is a moonlet of Didymos, which is defined as a near-Earth asteroid and has a shape like a top spinning in space with a diameter of about a half mile. Neither object imperils Earth.
Prior to the impact, the orbital period was 11 hours and 55 minutes. It now is 11 hours and 22 minutes. NASA's previous estimate, announced in October, was an orbital change of 32 minutes. The benchmark for success had been set as a change of at least 1 minute and 13 seconds.The scientists gave a blow-by-blow account of how the collision unfolded.
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