{"id":523376,"date":"2026-03-06T22:21:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T22:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/523376\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T22:21:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T22:21:07","slug":"nasas-dart-mission-did-more-than-just-nudge-an-asteroid-study-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/523376\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s DART Mission Did More Than Just Nudge an Asteroid, Study Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

In September 2022, NASA\u2019s DART spacecraft rammed into the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos<\/a> at nearly 15,000 miles per hour (24,000 kilometers per hour). The mission aimed to test whether NASA could one day use this technique to save Earth from an oncoming asteroid, and a new analysis suggests it could work.<\/p>\n

Before we dive into the findings, a bit of context. Dimorphos is part of a binary asteroid system, meaning it orbits a much larger asteroid called Didymos. This system poses no threat to Earth, but it did serve as the perfect natural laboratory for NASA to test its kinetic impactor planetary defense technique<\/a>. After the DART impact, researchers determined<\/a> that the mission altered Dimorphos\u2019s orbit around Didymos, proving that humanity can deliberately change a celestial object\u2019s trajectory.<\/p>\n

But from a planetary defense perspective, this only matters if humanity can alter an asteroid\u2019s orbit around the Sun, and this new study confirmed that DART did exactly that. Incredibly, the impact didn\u2019t just change Dimorphos\u2019 orbit around Didymos\u2014it also slightly altered the pair\u2019s path around the Sun. The findings, published<\/a> Friday in the journal Science Advances, make the strongest case for the kinetic impactor technique yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this paper, we have shown for the first time that an asteroid has been put on a different orbit by human interaction,\u201d co-author Steven Chesley, a senior research scientist at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Gizmodo. \u201cSo it works, and we know how to do it in the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tiny change, big deal <\/p>\n

To figure out how DART affected Dimorphos\u2019s solar orbit, Chesley and his colleagues primarily analyzed 5,955 ground-based radar measurements of the asteroid\u2019s position and 22 measurements of stellar occultation events, which occur when a celestial body passes in front of a star. Astronomers can then measure the temporary blocking of the star\u2019s light and calculate the object\u2019s trajectory with remarkable precision.<\/p>\n

Those occultation measurements came from a cadre of mostly \u201camateur\u201d astronomers working across the globe\u2014though Chesley said the term undersells their dedication and expertise. \u201cThe accuracy of these observations is really kind of mind-boggling,\u201d he said. This allowed his team to identify a tiny change in the velocity of Dimorphos\u2019s solar orbit after the DART impact, finding that it slowed by 11.7 micrometers per second, or approximately 1.7 inches per hour.<\/p>\n

While the change is minute, it still had the power to alter the solar orbit of the entire binary system over time. The size of the system\u2019s orbit shrank by about 1,200 feet (360 meters), meaning that its 2.1-year trip around the Sun shortened by roughly 0.15 seconds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a tiny change, and that\u2019s because the system is so much more massive than the satellite itself,\u201d Chesley explained. In a real planetary defense scenario, this probably wouldn\u2019t do much good, but the study still marks a significant step forward in our planetary defense capabilities by demonstrating the kinetic impactor technique can alter an object\u2019s solar orbit.<\/p>\n

Questions remain <\/p>\n

Still, much remains unknown about the impact of the DART mission, and answering these questions is critical to validating the kinetic impactor technique. For one thing, Chesley\u2019s previous research suggests<\/a> that DART significantly changed the shape of Dimorphos, but it will require a detailed survey to determine exactly what the asteroid looks like now.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where the European Space Agency\u2019s Hera mission comes in. This spacecraft is currently en route to the Dimorphos-Didymos system<\/a>, and when it arrives in November, it will map the entire surface of Dimorphos\u2014and most of Didymos\u2014at high resolution. This, coupled with a highly precise measurement of Dimorphos\u2019s mass, will allow researchers like Chesley to constrain the change to the system\u2019s orbit, reducing the uncertainty that underlies his team\u2019s calculations.<\/p>\n

Until then, the cadre of astronomers that contributed occultation data to this study will continue doing their thing, Chesley said. More occultation measurements will similarly enhance the precision of orbital change calculations.<\/p>\n

So while there\u2019s still much work to be done before NASA can definitely say the kinetic impactor technique is viable for planetary defense, scientists are now closer than ever. With Hera on the way to conduct its groundbreaking survey, researchers are poised to turn this proof-of-concept into a fully tested strategy for asteroid deflection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In September 2022, NASA\u2019s DART spacecraft rammed into the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos at nearly 15,000 miles per hour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[24382,64,63,101144,131,44561,128,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-523376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-asteroids","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-dart-mission","12":"tag-nasa","13":"tag-planetary-defense","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}