US Edition“Something Unknown Is at Work” Behind NASA’s DART Planetary Defense Mission—and Astronomers Are Worried
SPACE AROUND ASTEROID MOON DIMORPHOS, JUL 10 – The DART mission ejected 104 boulders at speeds up to 116 mph, complicating future asteroid deflection strategies, according to University of Maryland researchers.
- On July 4, a research paper published in The Planetary Science Journal reveals NASA's DART mission may have unintentionally complicated future asteroid deflection efforts by ejecting boulders with high momentum, posing new challenges for planetary defense.
- Following DART's 2022 orbit change, research shows ejected boulders added momentum, complicating future asteroid deflection efforts.
- Analysis reveals 104 boulders, some reaching 116 mph, with three times the impactor’s momentum and 70% of ejecta clustered in one group.
- UMD researchers warn that DART's ejected boulders increase asteroid deflection complexity, demanding more advanced planning for future planetary defense missions.
- Europe’s Hera mission in 2026 will study DART's impact aftermath, leveraging current data to improve future asteroid deflection models.
13 Articles
13 Articles
Remember That Asteroid NASA Deflected in a Test of Saving Earth? We Have Bad News
In late 2022, NASA celebrated its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) as a massive success, a proof of concept for saving humanity in case a similar space rock were to ever head straight for Earth. The small spacecraft smashed into asteroid Didymos' moonlet Dimorphos at a violent 14,000 mph, knocking it severely off course. But three years later, astronomers found that the collision had some unintended consequences. As detailed in a paper pu…
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When the Nasa rammed an asteroid, it triggered more than just a change of course. The new research data could change planetary defense.
NASA's asteroid target practice may not have been the success we thought
When NASA smacked an asteroid with a spacecraft the size of a vending machine in 2022, the mission was rather quickly declared a victory. DART, short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, sought to prove whether humans could one day nudge a killer space rock off course. The crash did, in fact, shift the harmless moonlet Dimorphos' orbit by 33 minutes. But new research led by the University of Maryland suggests the results of that target practice…
The ejected boulders carried surprisingly more momentum than the DART probe itself • The unexpected lateral impulse was likely caused by the solar panels hitting the boulders • The asteroid's surface is key to the success of future planetary defense missions
Some Things Unknown Behind DART: The Alert of the Planetary Defense Astronomes: NASA's DART Mission Reveals Unanticipated Challenges for the Protection of... The post Some Things Unknown Behind DART: The Alert of the Astronomes appeared first on World News.
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