DART was launched in November of last year to intercept an asteroid and try to knock it off its course. Fortunately, asteroid Dimorphos isn't on a collision course with our planet, though it will come close enough to be classified as a near-earth object, but the idea is to test out the system in case we ever find an asteroid threatening a collision with Earth.
DART will crash into the asteroid in order to get it to move away from it. Researchers from the University of Bern in Switzerland created a simulation of the asteroid impact using a computer model.
It was found by the researchers that the asteroid could be damaged by the impact of the spaceship. The way it will break up is dependent on what the asteroid is made of, and previous assumptions had been that asteroids have a solid interior. Some asteroids have been suggested to be more porous.
The Japanese space agency's Hayabusa2 probe shows that asteroids can have a very loose internal structure similar to a pile of rubble.
Instead of an impact crater of 160 meters wide, the impact of DART could cause the asteroid to be completely destroyed. To model the impact, the researchers looked at factors such as how shock waves would move through the asteroid and how material in the asteroid would be affected by the impact.
The necessary methods were not available when it came to studying a loose internal structure. The relatively long and complex process of crater formation following such an impact made it impossible to recreate it in a lab.
The research is in a journal.
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