When NASA crashed its DART spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos, the goal was to shorten the space rock’s orbit around its parent asteroid. The mission succeeded - but Dimorphos’ orbit has continued to shrink and it isn’t clear why
When NASA crashed its DART spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos, the goal was to shorten the space rock’s orbit around its parent asteroid. The mission succeeded - but Dimorphos’ orbit has continued to shrink and it isn’t clear why
A few good speculations in the article (tumbling from the impact or ejecta coming back and imparting more change). Plus the HERA mission is scheduled to do an observation in a year or so to give even more data to work with.