NASA said that its first test of a planetary defense system was a success. In late September, the Double Asteroid Redirect Test succeeded in smashing a space craft into an asteroid. It would be hard to pick up any changes in the satellite's position. The magnitude of the shift was large enough for ground-based telescopes to pick it up.
A lot of hardware is being used to pick up the debris that fell from the impact.
It is not possible to resolve dimorphos from Earth. The light from the Didymos reflects off the single object from here. The Didymos system occasionally darkened. The two asteroids are arranged in a way that Earth can see them. We only get light reflected off one of the two bodies because Dimorphos' occasionally takes it behind Didymos.
We can figure out how far away the two asteroids are by measuring the darkening's time periods.
AdvertisementDART's impact was intended to be slow and head on. This will result in it dropping into a lower altitude. Even though we slowed the asteroid down, we expect it to be completed in less time. Is it quick? NASA concluded that, at a minimum, it would be over a minute shorter but that it would be more significant. The team had been looking at a broad range of parameters for the potential physical properties of Dimorphos and had estimated we would make a change of between a few minutes and several tens of minutes.
The difference between the expectations of when you'd see a dimming and when it happens should grow. A variety of telescopes have grabbed observations that have a wide enough time window to capture both the expected and full range of potential timings. The results show that there has been a reduction in the distance traveled.
How much? It takes 11 hours and 55 minutes before DART and 23 minutes after. It's 32 minutes shorter for people who don't like math. According to NASA, the orbit is now close to Didymos. The two asteroids can be resolved by radar, even though Dimorphos occupies a single piece of the image.
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