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The asteroid Dimorphos is behaving in unexpected way after being hit with aNASArocket last twelvemonth , novel data suggest .
late observations of the more or less 580 - foot - wide ( 177 metre ) space rock — which NASAintentionally crash a spaceship intoon Sept. 26 , 2022 , as part of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test ( DART ) commission — show that Dimorphos may be tumbling in its usually unfluctuating orbit around its parent asteroid Didymos , according toNew Scientist . Dimorphos also appeared to be ceaselessly slowing down in its orbit for at least a calendar month after the projectile impingement , obstinate to NASA ’s predictions .
NASA’s DART at the Didymos System.
California high schooling teacher Jonathan Swift and his scholar first notice these unexpected change while observing Dimorphos with their school ’s 2.3 - foundation ( 0.7 metre ) scope last crepuscle . Several weeks after the DART wallop , NASA announced that Dimorphos had slowed in its orbit around Didymos by about 33 minutes . However , when Swift and his pupil studied Dimorphos one month after the impact , theasteroidseemed to have slowed by an extra second — suggesting it had been slowing continuously since the collision .
" The bit we suffer was slenderly prominent , a variety of 34 minutes , " Swift told New Scientist . " That was discrepant at an uncomfortable level . "
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Swift presented his category ’s findings at the American Astronomical Society conference in June . The DART team has since confirmed that Dimorphos did indeed continue slow down in its orbit up to a month after the shock — however , their calculations show an extra lag of 15 second gear , rather than a full minute . A month after the DART collision , the slowdown plateaued .
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What caused Dimorphos to decelerate steadily for a month , before reaching equilibrium ? A cloud of space rock could be to blame : late observation of the asteroid have revealed avast field of operations of Boulder — in all likelihood excite loose from Dimorphos ' surface during the wallop — strewn about the area . It ’s possible that some of the large bowlder fall back onto Dimorphos within that first calendar month , slowing its orbit further than anticipated , DART squad memberHarrison Agrusatold New Scientist .
The DART squad plan to give up its own account on the unexpected findings in the do weeks . However , utter answers may have to wait until 2026 , when theEuropean Space Agency ’s Hera spacecraft is schedule to arrive at Dimorphos to investigate the cosmic crash website up close .
