For the first time ever, humanity has changed the trajectory of a planetary object, reducing the asteroid Dimorphos’s orbital period.
Four different optical observatories in Chile and South Africa contributed to the analysis, as did the Green Bank and Goldstone radio telescopes. The two independent data sets pointed to the same answer of 32 minutes, with a margin of uncertainty for around plus or minus two minutes.
Hubble Space Telescope image showing the aftermath of the DART collision, including a comet-like tail emanating from the moonlet.Lori Glaze said the DART team would’ve been thrilled with a 73-second change to Dimorphos’s orbit, as that was deemed the minimal amount needed for a successful demonstration. The 32-minute adjustment fell within the bounds of the models, but at the extreme upper end of the predicted range, she explained.
Nancy Chabot, DART coordination lead at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, said the enhanced effect of the impact was likely due to the large amount of material kicked up from the surface by the collision. The fridge-sized DART was traveling at 14,000 miles per hour when it struck the unsuspecting asteroid.
Statler told reporters that the recoil from the ejecta—the surface material blown off the asteroid—was a major contributor to the orbital change. It was akin to air being blown out of a balloon. As a result of the test, Dimorphos is now tens of meters closer to the 2,650-foot-wide Didymos and more tightly bound to its larger host. The asteroids are 0.75 miles apart, while the system itself is 6.8 million miles from Earth.But as Statler explained, DART may have done more than just shorten Dimorphos’s orbit around Didymos. It’s possible that the impact introduced a wobble, both to its orbit and the moonlet itself. Future observations are needed to confirm this, he explained.
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