In a groundbreaking development, researchers from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) found that humans successfully deflected an asteroid from its regular orbit around the Sun in an experiment conducted in 2022, marking a historic first in planetary defense.
In 2022, NASA scientists deliberately crashed a spacecraft into a small asteroid moon, Dimorphos, and successfully changed its trajectory around its parent asteroid, Didymos.
For context, a small moon is a very small natural satellite, typically less than 1 to 2 km in diameter, orbiting a planet, dwarf planet, or asteroid.
Now, researchers have discovered that the first successful demonstration of the human ability to change the trajectory of an asteroid also resulted in both asteroids deviating from their regular orbits around the Sun.
A recent study published in the journal Science Advances revealed that the spacecraft’s collision with the moon caused Didymos’ speed to decrease by 11.7 micrometers per second.
Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign determined the change after examining more than 6,000 orbital turns of the asteroid around the star.
This means that future missions could target moons around asteroids to change their orbit, if they pose a threat to Earth.
The lead scientist for small bodies in the solar system at NASA Headquarters in Washington, Thomas Statler, praised the incredible success achieved with the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART).
He said: “This is a small change in orbit, but given enough time, even a small change can become a significant deviation.”
Despite the success, NASA has warned that there are no other DART-like spacecraft ready for launch if the need arises.
