In September of last year, after years of careful planning and development, NASA crashed a spacecraft smack into a rock drifting through the Solar System, just minding its own business.
, after years of careful planning and development, NASA crashed a spacecraft smack into a rock drifting through the Solar System, just minding its own business.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test was an attempt to see if this was feasible. The target was carefully chosen: Dimorphos, a moonlet orbiting a larger asteroid called Didymos. Because the orbital period of the two objects has been well characterized, any change in Dimorphos' trajectory would be detectable as a change in its orbital period.
Finally, a team led by planetary scientist Terik Daly of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratoryfrom the collected data, including the timeline leading up to the impact, a detailed characterization of the impact site, and the size and shape of Dimorphos.
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