Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Thomas, Cristina A
• Naidu, Shantanu P
• Scheirich, Peter
• Moskovitz, Nicholas A
• Pravec, Petr
• Chesley, Steven R
• Rivkin, Andrew S
• Osip, David J
• Lister, Tim A
• Benner, Lance A M
• Brozović, Marina
• Contreras, Carlos
• Morrell, Nidia
• Rożek, Agata
• Kušnirák, Peter
• Hornoch, Kamil
• Mages, Declan
• Taylor, Patrick A
• Seymour, Andrew D
• Snodgrass, Colin
• Jørgensen, Uffe G
• Dominik, Martin
• Skiff, Brian
• Polakis, Tom
• Knight, Matthew M
• Farnham, Tony L
• Giorgini, Jon D
• Rush, Brian
• Bellerose, Julie
• Salas, Pedro
• Armentrout, William P
• Watts, Galen
• Busch, Michael W
• Chatelain, Joseph
• Gomez, Edward
• Greenstreet, Sarah
• Phillips, Liz
• Bonavita, Mariangela
• Burgdorf, Martin J
• Khalouei, Elahe
• Longa-Peña, Penélope
• Rabus, Markus
• Sajadian, Sedighe
• Chabot, Nancy L
• Cheng, Andrew F
• Ryan, William H
• Ryan, Eileen V
• Holt, Carrie E
• Agrusa, Harrison F

Titel

Orbital period change of Dimorphos due to the DART kinetic impact

Ist Teil von

• Nature (London), 2023-04, Vol.616 (7957), p.448-451

Ort / Verlag

England: Nature Publishing Group

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft successfully performed the first test of a kinetic impactor for asteroid deflection by impacting Dimorphos, the secondary of near-Earth binary asteroid (65803) Didymos, and changing the orbital period of Dimorphos. A change in orbital period of approximately 7 min was expected if the incident momentum from the DART spacecraft was directly transferred to the asteroid target in a perfectly inelastic collision , but studies of the probable impact conditions and asteroid properties indicated that a considerable momentum enhancement (β) was possible . In the years before impact, we used lightcurve observations to accurately determine the pre-impact orbit parameters of Dimorphos with respect to Didymos . Here we report the change in the orbital period of Dimorphos as a result of the DART kinetic impact to be -33.0 ± 1.0 (3σ) min. Using new Earth-based lightcurve and radar observations, two independent approaches determined identical values for the change in the orbital period. This large orbit period change suggests that ejecta contributed a substantial amount of momentum to the asteroid beyond what the DART spacecraft carried.