by The shape of the asteroid Dimorphos was changed when NASA's DART spacecraft deliberately crashed into it in 2022 as part of a test of humanity's planetary defense capabilities.
DART, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, was designed to show whether we could divert a potentially hazardous asteroid away from Earth.
It was sent to a binary asteroid, in which the 170-meter-wide (560-foot-wide) Dimorphos orbits a larger 760-meter (2,493-foot-wide) space rock called Didymos.
When DART impacted Dimorphos on 26 September 2022, astronomers were able to measure how much the impact had nudged the asteroid by measuring how the space rock's orbit around Didymos changed.
Now, however, scientists have shown that it seems DART didn't just give Dimorphos a push; it also hit Dimorphos with enough kinetic energy to reshape it.
Source
DART, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, was designed to show whether we could divert a potentially hazardous asteroid away from Earth.
It was sent to a binary asteroid, in which the 170-meter-wide (560-foot-wide) Dimorphos orbits a larger 760-meter (2,493-foot-wide) space rock called Didymos.
When DART impacted Dimorphos on 26 September 2022, astronomers were able to measure how much the impact had nudged the asteroid by measuring how the space rock's orbit around Didymos changed.
Now, however, scientists have shown that it seems DART didn't just give Dimorphos a push; it also hit Dimorphos with enough kinetic energy to reshape it.
Source
