Success! NASA Says DART Really Clocked That Asteroid

Two weeks ago, the asteroid Dimorphos was minding its own business, quietly orbiting around its partner Didymos, when suddenly NASA’s DART spacecraft plowed into it at 14,000 miles per hour.

The space agency and its partners planned that collision to see whether such an impact could alter an asteroid or comet’s trajectory—should humanity ever need to defend the planet from an oncoming space rock. Before the crash on September 26, Dimorphos circled its neighbor like clockwork: one lap every 11 hours and 55 minutes. If the DART test was successful, the proof would be a change in that orbital period, showing that the refrigerator-sized spacecraft had nudged the asteroid onto

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