What is DART?

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART for short, was a test by NASA where they let a spacecraft crash into the asteroid Dimorphos, in attept to change it's orbit. While this article is being written, NASA doesn't know if Dimorphos' orbit has changed yet. But if it did, we now have an effective weapon agains asteroids. In this article, i will explain everything that happened.

Didymos was discovered in 1996 by the Spacewatch survey at Kitt Peak, and it's small moon named Dimorphos (Greek for "twin") was discovered in 2003. In 2021, NASA got the idea to crash a spacecraft into Dimorphos. The DART spacecraft was launched in California on 24 november 2021. It took 10 months to arrive, crashing into the asteroid on 26 september 2022.

Did it work?

While i was writing the previous paragraph, NASA didn't know if DART was a succes. But now they do!

It has been confirmed that DART shortened Dimorphos' orbit around Didymos 73 seconds. This means that we might have an effective weaon against asteroids.