Bea Beltran Science 12.19.2022 23:Dec PM EST

NASA's DART Mission Impact Results in 2 Million Pounds of Free-Floating Rock in Space

NASA successfully altered the trajectory of an asteroid using a spacecraft called DART or Double Asteroid Redirection Test. The success led to millions of pounds of asteroid debris floating in space, allowing scientists to study it.

The Broken Pieces May Hold Answers About Preventing Extinction

With the spacecraft hurtling toward the asteroid at 14,000 miles per hour, it created a massive enough impact for the asteroid to eject enormous chunks of rocks. With the opportunity presenting itself, scientists may now study what the asteroid is made of.

There are instruments that can be used like the Italian Space Agency's LICIACube, which is a CubeSat whose purpose is to conduct scale tests of the kinetic impact technique. The test will help Earth's planetary defense should an asteroid threaten to make an impact.

Tom Statler, a DART program scientist, said that the DART mission was part of NASA's aim to understand the asteroids and the other small bodies in the solar system. Now, NASA will observe and study what the asteroids are made of and how they were formed.

The DART team believes that Didymos and Dimorphos, the two asteroids encountered by the DART mission, are made of chondrites. Chondrites make up 85% of the meteorites that NASA has encountered, as mentioned in CNET.

According to scientists, the impact was around 3.6 times stronger because of the messy collision as opposed to a clean stab, wherein the spacecraft would just burrow into the asteroid. It means that the ejection of debris contributed to the shift of Dimorphous.

The Dinosaurs Would've Loved DART

We can now take the fear of asteroids destroying the Earth off our list. The success of the DART mission means that we can divert the trajectory of an asteroid should its path come across Earth. This is the first for humans to change the direction of a celestial object.

The mission is a massive success. Initially, the minimum successful orbit period change of Dimorphos was only 73 seconds. The recent collision altered the asteroid's orbit around Didymos by 32 minutes, which beats the previous attempt by more than 25 times.

Despite that, NASA still has a lot to explore. Experts still have to study the characteristics of the asteroid like its surface or how strong it is. The information will help scientists understand more how the recoil from the ejecta affected the shift, according to NASA.

As stated by Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, new data will aid astronomers in better assessing whether and how the DART mission could be used to protect Earth in the future.

After approximately four years, the Hera project under the European Space Agency will conduct surveys of the two mentioned asteroids. Most importantly, it will study the crater caused by DART's collision, as well as the measurement of Dimorphos' mass.

Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, said that we all had a responsibility to protect our planet, given that it was the only one we have. He also expressed the success of the mission shows how prepared NASA was for a planetary threat like an asteroid collision.