Scientists are studying the effects of asteroid impacts as part of NASA’s Dart mission.

Technologue.id, Jakarta – NASA, the United States space agency, is conducting a space mission involving a Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) aircraft. The ship crashes into an asteroid called Dimorphos and changes its orbital trajectory.

According to Techspot, the scientists continued their research after the DART collision with Dimorphos. Having confirmed the ability of humans to deflect potentially dangerous targets with sufficient lead and resources, researchers are now studying the special effects of DART impacts on asteroids.

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Another DART mission study was recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The study examines space-based images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, with a focus on ejecta from the DART probe’s collision with the asteroid Dimorphos.

This collision resulted in the ejection of a visible “long tail” of debris, indicating a critical role in achieving higher-than-expected deflection results.

Images taken by Hubble now show “huge populations” of boulders moving around several asteroid systems. The largest stone has a diameter of about 7 meters and an estimated geometric albedo of 0.15.

Hubble identified a total of 37 boulders with a combined mass of about 0.1 percent of Dimorphos’ pre-impact mass.

The rocks orbit Dimorphos and the larger asteroid Didymos. As a result, they will eventually leave the asteroid and go into outer space.

To observe the approximately 40 boulders orbiting, scientists had to take several long exposure shots of the tail-like phenomenon left after the impact.

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The study estimated that 40 ejected boulders covered about two percent of the entire surface of the asteroid, which is equivalent to a 50-meter crater. The surface of Dimorphos is likely to be very porous, which limits the penetration of seismic energy generated by DART into the interior of the asteroid.

Studying asteroid impacts from a distance can be challenging for scientists. The DART mission became the starting point for the European Space Agency’s HERA mission. The probe is scheduled to launch in October 2024, and in 2026 it will enter the orbit of a system with several asteroids.

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