DART's impact with Dimorphos altered the object's orbit around Didymos. But it may have changed its shape and sent it tumbling, too.
In 2022, NASA’s DART spacecraft collided with an object named Dimorphos. The objective was to test redirecting hazardous asteroids by deflecting them with an impact. The test was a success, and Dimorphos was measurably affected.In recent decades, we’ve made progress cataloguing the asteroids in the Solar System. Some of them are close enough to Earth to be dangerous. If an object comes within 1.
Pre-impact observations showed that Dimorphos had an oblate shape. But after the impact, it became prolate or elongated. This went against pre-impact observations, which suggested that Dimorphos was initially elongated. Didymos and Dimorphos are connected gravitationally, and after the impact, scattered debris from Dimorphos altered their relationship, reducing Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos. It isn’t certain yet, but Dimorphos may have entered a tumbling state.
DART changed the mutual orbit of Didymos and Dimorphos, and it also changed their orbit around the Sun. The initial impact wasn’t entirely responsible for this change. The ejecta also contributed. “The initial impulse delivered to the system’s barycenter was augmented by the momentum carried by the ejecta that escaped the system,” the authors explain.
The impact generated so much ejecta that Dimorphos formed a tail. Some of that debris had to have landed on Didymos, but observations so far show that it hasn’t affected its surface or its dynamics. “This implies Didymos’s surface was strong enough to withstand such impacts,” the authors write. However, in the past, Didymos likely suffered some type of fracturing, possibly due to its fast spin rate, and debris from that event likely formed Dimorphos.
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