Current:Home > ScamsNASA's mission to purposely collide with asteroid sent 'swarm of boulders' into space-DB Wealth Institute B2 Expert Reviews
NASA's mission to purposely collide with asteroid sent 'swarm of boulders' into space
View Date:2024-12-23 18:20:03
A "swarm of boulders" was sent careening into space after NASA successfully disrupted the orbit of an asteroid last year, according to the space agency.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, or DART, collided with Dimorphos, a small asteroid that is the moon of a bigger space rock, Didymos, at about 14,000 miles per hour.
Not only did the test successfully change the trajectory of the orbit but about 37 boulders were shaken off the asteroid in images captured by the Hubble telescope, NASA said.
MORE: NASA spacecraft successfully collides with asteroid
The boulders range in size from three feet to 22 feet across and are drifting away from the asteroid at about half a mile per hour.
David Jewett, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has been tracking changes after the DART mission with the Hubble telescope, told ABC News the trail of the impact had been studied for months and no boulders were noticed.
"So, you know, the impact was at the end of September and I noticed the boulders in data from December, so it's a long time after -- you would think -- everything should be over," he said. "Impact is an impulse, it's an instantaneous bang. So you would think, naively, you will be able to see it all straight away."
What's more, he said the boulders were not in any predictions for what the impact would look like.
The boulders were likely already scattered across the surface of the asteroid rather than chunks of the asteroid that broke off after the impact, according to NASA.
While the boulders are not a threat to Earth, the images are a reminder that future asteroid impact missions could have similar aftereffects.
MORE: NASA says 98% of astronauts' urine, sweat can be recycled into drinking water
Jewitt said this is among the first times scientists know just about all details of the impact and are able to see what happens when it's caused by humans.
"We've seen other examples of impact between one asteroid and another and the trouble there is we don't know when the impact occurred," Jewitt said. "We see the debris but at some uncertain time after the impact, so the interpretation is clouded by not knowing when it happened, not knowing how big or how energetic the two asteroids were when they collided and so on, so it's not very well characterized."
"So, this is a case where, you know, we know the mass of the spacecraft, we know the speed of the spacecraft, so we know the energy. We know quite a lot about the impact," he continued. "And then the idea is to look at the consequences of a well-calibrated impact to see how the asteroid responds."
Jewitt added this will be something the European Space Agency's upcoming Hera mission will investigate.
The Hera mission will examine the asteroid for future asteroid deflection missions, although the mission is launching on October 2024 and will not reach the sight of the impact until December 2026, according to the ESA.
"They're gonna fly through these boulders on the way to seeing the targeted asteroid called Dimorphos and so … maybe they can study some of these boulders and figure out their properties better than we can get them from the ground," Jewitt said. "It's just a question of characterizing the products of a manmade impact into an asteroid to the best possibility that we can."
ABC News' Max Zahn contributed to this report.
veryGood! (3559)
Related
- NFL Week 10 winners, losers: Cowboys' season can no longer be saved
- Biden says he's serious about prisoner exchange to free detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich
- A California Water Board Assures the Public that Oil Wastewater Is Safe for Irrigation, But Experts Say the Evidence Is Scant
- Exxon announced record earnings. It's bound to renew scrutiny of Big Oil
- Spurs coach Gregg Popovich had a stroke earlier this month, is expected to make full recovery
- Kesha Shares She Almost Died After Freezing Her Eggs
- Bebe Rexha Breaks Silence After Concertgoer Is Arrested for Throwing Phone at Her in NYC
- Gas stove makers have a pollution solution. They're just not using it
- Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly are expecting their first child together
- Kylie Jenner Is Not OK After This Cute Exchange With Son Aire
Ranking
- Texas mother sentenced to 50 years for leaving kids in dire conditions as son’s body decomposed
- A California Water Board Assures the Public that Oil Wastewater Is Safe for Irrigation, But Experts Say the Evidence Is Scant
- Vitamix Flash Deal: Save 44% On a Blender That Functions as a 13-In-1 Machine
- Here's what the latest inflation report means for your money
- Could trad wives, influencers have sparked the red wave among female voters?
- Can you drink too much water? Here's what experts say
- Surface Water Vulnerable to Widespread Pollution From Fracking, a New Study Finds
- Hong Kong bans CBD, a move that forces businesses to shut down or revamp
Recommendation
-
Arkansas governor unveils $102 million plan to update state employee pay plan
-
A jury clears Elon Musk of wrongdoing related to 2018 Tesla tweets
-
Warming Trends: Best-Smelling Vegan Burgers, the Benefits of Short Buildings and Better Habitats for Pollinators
-
Pregnant Rihanna and A$AP Rocky Need to Take a Bow for These Twinning Denim Looks
-
2 Florida women charged after shooting death of photographer is livestreamed
-
Despite billions to get off coal, why is Indonesia still building new coal plants?
-
The IPCC Understated the Need to Cut Emissions From Methane and Other Short-Lived Climate Pollutants, Climate Experts Say
-
Tom Brady ends his football playing days, but he's not done with the sport