NASA asteroid deflection experiment: scientists learn about unexpected new results

NASA scientists continue to analyze the results of an experiment aimed at changing the flight path of the near-Earth asteroid Dimorph, which poses no threat to Earth. The new data shows that during the event in September of this year, there was a significant reversal in the asteroid’s debris ejection, further amplifying the impact of the impact, writes Gizmodo.

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At the end of September this year, a spacecraft called DART successfully completed the task assigned to it – it crashed into the asteroid Dimorph (diameter – about 163 meters) at great speed and, as I wrote earlier, changed its orbit Focus. It is worth noting that this asteroid is orbiting a larger space rock called Didyma, about 11 million km from us.

As a result of the crash, Dimorph began to spin around his master much faster, and his turn time was reduced to 32 minutes. Thus, NASA was convinced that with the help of such impact devices it is possible to change the flight path of asteroids, which is really dangerous for Earth.

Then, as mentioned earlier FocusIn , scientists discovered that a large eruption of debris was a side effect of hitting the asteroid. Subsequent observations showed that the space rock also has a tail like a comet, but it appeared later, as I wrote earlier. FocusNow it even has two such tails.

Almost 3 months have passed since the asteroid impact, but scientists continue to examine the full consequences of this event. Asteroid Dimorph is not a solid rock, but a clump of rock held together by gravity. Because of this, a lot of debris flew into space, but scientists weren’t entirely sure how much.

According to Andy Rivkin of the DART mission team, scientists discovered that more than 900 tons of debris flew into space after a refrigerator-sized vehicle collided with a space rock at 22,500 km/h. Such a pile of stones can fill 6 or 7 wagons. But scientists believe this number could be 10 times higher.

Also, new data showed that this launch caused a rebound effect, which further contributed to the change in the asteroid’s trajectory and flew as scientists needed.

“If the Dimorph were an ordinary gigantic stone, this effect probably wouldn’t have been achieved,” says Rivkin.

The scientists say this important result of the impact provides new insights into how a striker can have an impact on an asteroid. Now the new data will be used to determine all the properties of the future dangerous asteroid, including its density and composition, to accurately calculate the strength of the future impact. This is necessary to plan the mission that will be required when Earth is threatened by a truly large asteroid.

Also now scientists are trying to figure out how the initial impact of the DART device changed Dimorph’s flight path and how that trajectory was affected by the recoil effect.

Another important consequence of the impact was the appearance of a tail of debris much longer than the asteroid, as the scientists were able to learn. If preliminary estimates showed its size to be 10 thousand km, a new analysis showed that the length of this tail is 30 thousand km.

Scientists continue their observations of the asteroid Dimorph to gain even more new data.

As already written Focus, American scientists believe that by replacing the asteroid, you can build a real space city in it. They described in detail and showed what it might look like and when such a human settlement could be created.