Astronomers watched in awe as Didymos became brighter after the impact of DART.
Italian astronomer Gianluca Masi was so excited about the sight that he broadcasted it in a live stream. A small, dim dot that marked the Didymos - Dimorphos asteroid, at that time some 7 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth, began rapidly brightening and quickly overtook the stars in that small section of the sky.
Masi said in the stream that he had exceeded his expectations. The object is more than three times brighter than before.
The last thing DART saw before it crashed was an asteroid.
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Masi was able to see Didymos through a telescope at the Klein Karoo Observatory in South Africa because Italy was outside of the region.
The cloud of debris stirred by DART's impact quickly spread in the surrounding space as Didymos grew in size and changed shape.
Monard explained that a cloud of dust was released after the impact and that it was sending light back to the sun. It's much more than I expected. The shape isn't the same. It is similar to a comet. There are particles that are moving away from the asteroid.
It was only in 2005 when NASA's Deep Impact probe collided with a comet, that the only other time astronomy could see such a human-made brightening of a comet. The goal of the mission was not to change the comet's trajectory but to get some material from its surface.
Masi commented on his observations of Deep Impact's encounter with the comet, saying that it was by far the most dramatic he had ever seen.
The Didymos asteroid is being looked at by telescopes all over the world in order to learn more about the impact and the effects on the moonlet. The main purpose of the DART mission was to alter Dimorphos' flight around Didymos.
The DART experiment could lead to technology that protects us from a space rock on a collision course with Earth.
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