Post by dennisw on Feb 29, 2024 10:38:45 GMT 10
This is not what NASA expected to happen. Back in Sept. 2022, the space agency's DART spacecraft slammed into asteroid-moon Dimorphos, blasting huge streamers of debris into space and changing its orbit around Didymos. Mission planners figured there must be a crater where the spacecraft struck, but new research published this week in Nature Astronomy suggests something completely different happened.
"Our simulations indicate that the DART impact caused a global deformation and resurfacing of Dimorphos," the authors write. "ESA's upcoming Hera mission may find a reshaped asteroid rather than a well-defined crater."
www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02200-3
"Our simulations indicate that the DART impact caused a global deformation and resurfacing of Dimorphos," the authors write. "ESA's upcoming Hera mission may find a reshaped asteroid rather than a well-defined crater."
www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02200-3
