After NASA’s DART spacecraft slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos, the debris from the collision was blown into an enormous tail stretching behind the asteroid
CTIO/NOIRLab/SOAR/NSF/AURA/T. Kareta , M. Knight Image processing: T.A. Rector , M. Zamani & D. de Martin
After being battered by a spacecraft, the asteroid Dimorphos has developed a long tail of debris. NASA’s craft smashed into the small asteroid on 26 September, and an image from two days after the impact shows the resulting debris streaming away. Dimorphos is just 170 metres across, and its new plume of dust and rocks measures about 10,000 kilometers long. It was photographed by astronomers using the Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope in Chile.
DART’s goal in slamming into Dimorphos was to shift the asteroid’s orbit around the slightly larger asteroid Didymos. Observing the aftermath of the collision, particularly how much the orbit was shifted, will help researchers figure out how best to protect Earth from any potentially dangerous asteroids that we may encounter in the future, although Dimorphos and Didymos are both completely harmless.
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