What's happened
NASA's DART mission successfully reshapes the orbit of asteroid Dimorphos through a deliberate impact, revealing unexpected changes in the asteroid's shape and composition.
Why it matters
The successful reshaping of an asteroid's orbit through a deliberate impact provides valuable insights into planetary defense technology and the composition of asteroids, potentially impacting future strategies for defending Earth from potential asteroid threats.
What the papers say
The New York Times emphasizes the unexpected changes in Dimorphos' shape and the potential implications for planetary defense. The Independent and Metro focus on the significance of the impact for understanding the composition of asteroids and the potential implications for Earth's defense against asteroid threats.
How we got here
In 2022, NASA's DART mission deliberately targeted asteroid Dimorphos to change its orbit around the larger asteroid Didymos as a planetary defense experiment.
More on these topics
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Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. According to radiometric dating estimation and other evidence, Earth formed over 4.5 billion years ago.
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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an independent agency of the U.S. Federal Government responsible for the civilian space program, as well as aeronautics and space research.
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Double Asteroid Redirection Test is a planned space probe that will visit the double asteroid Didymos and demonstrate the kinetic effects of crashing an impactor spacecraft into an asteroid moon for planetary defense purposes.
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Dimorphos is a small asteroid satellite that was discovered in 2003. It is the minor-planet moon of a synchronous binary system with 65803 Didymos as the primary asteroid.
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Michael E. Brown is an American astronomer, who has been professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology since 2003.
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The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of the objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest are the eight planets, with the remainder being smaller objects, the dwar