The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) has left a vast field of rubble strewn around asteroid Dimorphos, Hubble images show.
The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted the gory aftermath of the first-ever intentional collision between a spacecraft and an asteroid, revealing a debris field of at least 37"boulders" flung thousands of miles into space.
Now, by using Hubble to study the impact, astronomers have found that DART's roughly 14,540 mph impact on the asteroid produced a"swarm of boulders." The rocks, which range from 3 to 22 feet in diameter, were most likely shaken loose from the asteroid's surface during the impact. The researchers published their findings July 20 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
"This tells us for the first time what happens when you hit an asteroid and see material coming out up to the largest sizes," David Jewitt, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a statement."The boulders are some of the faintest things ever imaged inside our solar system."
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