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On 26 September 2022, NASA's DART spacecraft deliberately crashed into Dimorphos, a small asteroid orbiting a larger one, and cut the time it takes to circle its partner by about 33 minutes. It was the first proof that an impact can change an asteroid's path.

Nature, 2023

SpaceEngineeringScienceTechnology

The story behind the card

DART, short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, launched in November 2021 and hit Dimorphos, about 150 metres across, at roughly 6.1 kilometres per second. Neither Dimorphos nor its partner Didymos was ever a threat to Earth; the pair was chosen because a change in the small asteroid's orbit is easy to measure with telescopes. Before the impact, Dimorphos circled Didymos every 11 hours and 55 minutes. The team would have counted a change of 73 seconds as success; the actual change was about 33 minutes, partly because the impact threw off a huge plume of rock and dust that pushed the asteroid further. A small Italian satellite, LICIACube, photographed the plume, and the European Space Agency's Hera probe, launched in 2024, is due to arrive in late 2026 to study the crater.

Türkçe oku
NASA'nın DART uzay aracı, 26 Eylül 2022'de daha büyük bir asteroidin çevresinde dönen küçük Dimorphos asteroidine bilerek çarptı. Çarpma, Dimorphos'un eşinin çevresindeki bir turunu yaklaşık 33 dakika kısalttı; bu, bir asteroidin rotasının çarpmayla değiştirilebileceğinin ilk kanıtıydı.
Nature dergisi, 2023

Adı Double Asteroid Redirection Test'in (Çift Asteroit Yönlendirme Testi) kısaltması olan DART, Kasım 2021'de fırlatıldı ve yaklaşık 150 metre çapındaki Dimorphos'a saniyede 6,1 kilometre hızla çarptı. Ne Dimorphos ne de eşi Didymos Dünya için tehdit oluşturuyordu; bu ikili, küçük asteroidin yörüngesindeki bir değişiklik teleskoplarla kolayca ölçülebildiği için seçildi. Çarpmadan önce Dimorphos, Didymos'un çevresini 11 saat 55 dakikada dolanıyordu. Görev ekibi 73 saniyelik bir değişikliği bile başarı sayacaktı; gerçekleşen değişim ise 33 dakika kadardı. Bunun bir nedeni, çarpmanın fırlattığı dev kaya ve toz bulutunun asteroidi fazladan itmesiydi. İtalya'nın küçük uydusu LICIACube bu bulutu fotoğrafladı. Avrupa Uzay Ajansı'nın 2024'te fırlattığı Hera aracının da krateri incelemek için 2026 sonunda oraya varması bekleniyor.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Double Asteroid Redirection Test
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