65803 Didymos

In September 2022, a NASA spacecraft smashed into a tiny asteroid to nudge it off its orbital course. The mission was a success in testing an asteroid deflection method that may come in handy one day, but rather than leaving behind an impact crater, the orbital collision changed the shape of the target asteroid altogether, revealing its fungible composition. Dave Bautista Opens Up About His Relationship With Denis VilleneuveA team of researchers simulated the impact of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, to…

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have detected nearly 40 boulders near Dimorphos—the target of NASA’s wildly successful DART experiment to deflect a non-threatening asteroid. This isn’t exactly positive news, since it suggests that hitting a bona fide hazardous asteroid might create a cluster of possibly dangerous boulders advancing towards Earth.Inspiration Behind Immortal Longings | io9 InterviewI’m inclined to frame this as a good news, bad news sort of thing. The good news is that the Hubble Space…

LICIACube image showing the plumes of debris streaming from Dimorphos shortly after the DART impact on September 26. “Each rectangle represents a different level of contrast in order to better see fine structure in the plumes,” according to the European Space Agency.Image: ASI/NASA/APLEarlier this week, NASA announced that its DART spacecraft successfully moved an asteroid by a few dozen feet. This raises a valid question: How the heck did scientists figure this out,given that Dimorphos is nearly 7 million miles away?…

LICIACube image showing the aftermath of the DART impact. The object at top is Dimorphos, while the object in the foreground is Didymos.Image: ASI/NASAThey’re raw and a bit grainy, but LICIACube’s first batch of images have arrived, showing the immediate effects of the DART spacecraft crashing into Dimorphos. The 31-pound (14-kilogram) LICIACube (pronounced LEE-cha-cube) was trailing behind DART at the time of impact, having been dispatched by the NASA spacecraft two weeks ago. The probe has two optical cameras, LUKE and…

Artist’s conception of the DART mission. Image: NASAOn Monday, NASA will attempt to smash its car-sized DART spacecraft into a non-threatening asteroid, in what is an important first test of a planetary defense strategy against hazardouscelestial objects. A host of telescopes will be watching, including the Hubble and Webb space telescopes.“We are moving an asteroid,” Tom Statler, DART program scientist, told reporters yesterday at a NASA press briefing. “We’ve never done that before,” he added, saying “it’s kind of…

The DART mission will be the first to test asteroid deflection through kinetic impactor technology. Illustration: NASAIn order to protect the Earth, some sacrifices must be made. NASA’s DART spacecraft is currently on its way to a binary asteroid system known as Didymos and will essentially crash into one tiny asteroid to test out a deflection method. But rather than leaving behind an impact crater as initially intended, the DART spacecraft may actually deform the mini-moon, making it nearly unrecognizable.Using a new…