A spacecraft slowed the orbit of a pair of asteroids around the sun by more than 10 micrometers per second — the first time human activity has altered the orbit of a celestial object, researchers report March 6 in Science Advances. The experiment could have implications for protecting Earth from future asteroid strikes.
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, intentionally crashed a spacecraft into the small asteroid Dimorphos in 2022. The goal was to change Dimorphos’ orbit around its larger sibling, Didymos. Within a month, researchers showed that the impact shortened Dimorphos’ 12-hour orbit by 32 minutes.
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