Data analyzed by the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) team over the last couple of weeks confirms the impact worked as intended. Before DART slammed into the.
In brief: It’s been two weeks since NASA slammed a 1,260-pound spacecraft into a 530-foot-wide asteroid called Dimorphos at 14,000 mph in an effort to alter its orbit. We now know the results of the planetary defense demonstration.
Data analyzed by the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) team over the last couple of weeks confirms the impact worked as intended. Before DART slammed into the asteroid, it took Dimorphos 11 hours and 55 minutes to orbit its larger parent asteroid, Didymos. It now takes Dimorphos 11 hours and 23 minutes to orbit Didymos, meaning the crash slowed its orbit by approximately 32 minutes.
