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DART’s data verify its smashing success at deflecting asteroid moon Dimorphos

A strategy for deflecting asteroids on a path towards Earth has passed its first test. The results confirm predictions about how asteroids respond to impact — and offer useful insights.
  1. Coralie D. Adam

    1. Coralie D. Adam is at KinetX Aerospace, Tempe, Arizona 85284, USA.

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On 26 September 2022, a spacecraft the size of a refrigerator collided with the moon of an asteroid. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was the first planetary-defence experiment designed to test the viability of re-routing an asteroid through kinetic impact. Viewers worldwide were captivated by images transmitted by the DART spacecraft as it approached the asteroid moon known as Dimorphos. Five papers1–5 in this issue characterize the impact and its dusty aftermath, which were captured by space- and Earth-based telescopes. The authors’ findings advance our understanding of asteroid-impact geophysics and planetary defence.

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Nature 616, 437-438 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-01020-1

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 26 April 2023: Figure 1 in the original version of this News & Views article showed Dimorphos orbiting in the opposite direction around Didymos.

References

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  13. Jewitt, D. & Hsieh, H. H. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.01397 (2022).

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Competing Interests

C.D.A. works for KinetX Aerospace, which provides engineering (flight navigation) support for some NASA-funded missions, and has existing contracts through Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center on missions that are unrelated to DART.

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