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DART spacecraft made bigger than expected orbital change
Posted on 3/7/26 at 7:23 pm
Posted on 3/7/26 at 7:23 pm
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The target was a 525-foot-long moonlet named Dimorphos that orbits a 2,550-foot-long asteroid named Didymos. Neither poses a threat to Earth, and altering the smaller asteroid’s orbit around its larger companion was extremely unlikely to change that. The mission, known as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), was a success, demonstrating that swatting an asteroid away from Earth is possible.
But painstaking telescope observations of the pair now reveal that DART’s kamikaze rendezvous with Dimorphos was so forceful that the recoiling moonlet gave Didymos a gravitational jostle, shifting both asteroids onto a different orbital racetrack around the sun.
The mission was to change the moonlet, a small body orbiting the bigger asteroid. Turns out it altered the asteroid's orbit as well.
The target was a 525-foot-long moonlet named Dimorphos that orbits a 2,550-foot-long asteroid named Didymos. Neither poses a threat to Earth, and altering the smaller asteroid’s orbit around its larger companion was extremely unlikely to change that. The mission, known as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), was a success, demonstrating that swatting an asteroid away from Earth is possible.
But painstaking telescope observations of the pair now reveal that DART’s kamikaze rendezvous with Dimorphos was so forceful that the recoiling moonlet gave Didymos a gravitational jostle, shifting both asteroids onto a different orbital racetrack around the sun.
The mission was to change the moonlet, a small body orbiting the bigger asteroid. Turns out it altered the asteroid's orbit as well.
Posted on 3/7/26 at 7:28 pm to deltadummy
quote:
kamikaze rendezvous
quote:
gravitational jostle
Dibs on the band names.
Posted on 3/7/26 at 10:09 pm to deltadummy
I wish Mingo was still here so I could call him a moonlet.
Posted on 3/8/26 at 8:06 am to deltadummy
Good! That shows the experiment worked even better than expected.
Posted on 3/8/26 at 9:33 am to boxcarbarney
What happened to him/her?
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