Suggested Searches

1 min read

DART Team Celebrates Successful Collision

DART team celebrating
In this image from Sept. 26, 2022, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) team, Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, and guests at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory cheer as they receive confirmation of DART’s collision with Dimorphos.

In this image from Sept. 26, 2022, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) team, Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, and guests at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory cheer as they receive confirmation of DART’s collision with the asteroid Dimorphos—the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration.

During the spacecraft’s final moments before impact, its Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation imager took four images capturing its terminal approach as Dimorphos increasingly fills the field of view.

The investigation team will now observe Dimorphos using ground-based telescopes to confirm that DART’s impact altered the asteroid’s orbit around Didymos. Researchers expect the impact to shorten Dimorphos’ orbit by about 1%, or roughly 10 minutes; precisely measuring how much the asteroid was deflected is one of the primary purposes of the full-scale test.

Image Credit: NASA/David C. Bowman