NASA Publishes Findings From DART Mission

Images from NASA's DART spacecraft—taken moments before colliding with the asteroid Dimorphos—offer new insights into the origins and evolution of binary asteroid systems.

These findings give us new insights into the ways that asteroids can change over time. This is important [...] for our ability to read the history of our solar system from these remnants of planet formation. - Thomas Statler, NASA

Five research papers, published Tuesday, detail the characteristics of Dimorphos and its partner asteroid, Didymos, located within 7 million miles of Earth. By studying the craters and surface strength of the asteroids, researchers determined Didymos formed 12.5 million years ago, and Dimorphos—a "moonlet" asteroid—formed 300,000 years ago, likely from material shed by Didymos.

The DART mission, launched in Nov. 2021, intentionally crashed into Dimorphos in Sept. 2022, at roughly 14,000 mph. The collision successfully redirected the asteroid, demonstrating a method that could be used to defend Earth from potential asteroid impacts.

The detail provided by the research will aid the European Space Agency's Hera mission, due to launch in Oct., as it seeks to study the aftermath of the collision up-close.

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NASA's Planetary Defense

• In April, NASA hosted its fifth exercise on planetary defense, gathering 100 international government representatives to prepare for a potential asteroid impact.
• The agency's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, established in 2016, works to catalogue near-Earth objects that could collide with the planet.
• NASA's NEO Surveyor telescope, set to launch no earlier than June 2028, will seek to discover 90% of large near-Earth objects.