As of: March 1, 2024, 11:16 a.m
By: Tanja Banner
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NASA's DART probe successfully deflected an asteroid.
A new study now reveals surprising findings about the impact crater.
Munich - In autumn 2022, NASA carried out a planetary defense test with its “DART” space probe by aiming at the asteroid “Dimorphos” and allowing the probe to impact.
The question was whether an asteroid heading toward Earth could be deflected by a “kinetic impactor.”
The answer: yes.
The orbit of “Dimorphos” around the larger asteroid “Dynamos” was shortened by 33 minutes after the impact.
The European space agency Esa is now planning to launch the “Hera” space probe in October 2024, which will arrive at the pair of asteroids in 2026 and examine the crater on “Dimorphos” caused by “DART”.
However, a recent study published in
Nature Astronomy
suggests that this crater may not even exist.
Researchers simulate the impact of a NASA probe on an asteroid
A team of scientists led by Sabina Raducan from the University of Bern used the Bern SPH software system to simulate the collision of the NASA spacecraft with the asteroid.
The system converts colliding bodies into millions of particles whose behavior can be influenced by various variables.
The team used all known values, such as the mass of “DART”, the approximate shape of the asteroid and the size of the cloud of material created by the impact.
The unknown variables were constantly changing.
Raducan explains: “This is a computationally intensive process where each simulation takes about a week and a half.
In total, we carried out around 250 simulations, replicating the first two hours after the impact.”
The asteroid “Dimorphos” as photographed by NASA’s “Dart” spacecraft shortly before impact.
© NASA/Johns Hopkins APL
Does the asteroid “Dimorphos” even have an impact crater?
The researcher adds: “We then checked which of the simulation results corresponded most closely to the observed reality.
"The results suggest that 'Dimorphos' is a relatively weak 'debris pile' asteroid, held together by the asteroid's extremely weak gravity rather than cohesive force."
Cohesion forces are the binding forces between atoms and molecules within a substance that ensure its cohesion.
The team also focused on the crater that the Hera probe will study in the future.
Martin Jutzi, co-author of the study, explains: “A cratering event is usually terminated either by gravity or by the strength of the cratered material.”
On Earth, the high gravity creates a “typical crater cone angle” of around 90 degrees.
On “Dimorphos,” however, the ejection cone had an angle of up to 160 degrees.
Jutzi describes: “And the crater continued to expand because both the gravity and the material cohesion are so low.”
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Researcher: Asteroid is “a completely different body” after impact
Raducan goes further and says: “It is likely that the crater grew to cover the entire body, eventually completely reshaping Dimorphos.
As a result, 'Hera' is unlikely to find any crater left by 'DART'.
What she will discover instead is a completely different body.” According to the researcher, the simulations suggest that the original shape of “Dimorphos” has been blunted on one side.
"If you imagine that 'Dimorphos' started out looking like a chocolate M&M, now it looks like someone took a bite out of it," she explained.
Even if there is no impact crater, the Hera spacecraft will have a lot to analyze when it visits Dimorphos.
Despite already completed missions such as “Osiris-Rex” or “Hayabusa-2”, their visit to the asteroid is one of the few asteroid missions ever.
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