NASA crashed a high-speed spacecraft into an asteroid and changed it forever

The mission was deemed an overall success as NASA's high-speed spacecraft collided with the moonlet Dimorphos, which is orbiting a larger asteroid called Didymos. The collision took place on September 26, 2023, and the DART spacecraft reduced the Dimorphos' orbit around Didymos by 33 minutes, making its total time to complete one orbit around its parent 11 hours and 23 minutes. The success of the mission demonstrated that Earth has planetary defense capabilities to redirect dangerous asteroids years in advance if one is detected.

Now, the DART impact seems to have had a permanent change on the appearance of Dimorphos, as a team of researchers led by University of Bern scientist Sabina Raducan performed high-level computer simulations that determined that Dimorphos is a loose, rubble-pile asteroid. The impact of the DART spacecraft has caused what researchers call global deformation, which is the process of interior material becoming surface material. According to the team's calculations, between 0.5% and 1% of Dimorphos' mass was ejected after DART's impact, with 8% of its mass being redistributed throughout the asteroid.