NASA spacecraft impact on asteroid triggers ‘cloud of rocks’

Dart’s effect effectively altered Dimorphos’ trajectory. but Pictures from Hubble showed that the collision also launched 37 rocks into the universe ranging in size from 1 to more than 7 meters. These rocks represent about 2% of all those identified on the asteroid surface. Dimorphos, with a diameter of 160 meters, looks more like a jumble of large rocks related by their mutual culture than a solid mass.

The impact-scattered rocks are moving away from the asteroid very slowly, at about 1 km/h, according to a statement from the Hubble Space Telescope. This slowness will allow the European Space Agency’s HERA mission, which should examine the asteroid in 2026, to monitor the rocks.

swarm of bees

“The rock cloud will still be dispersed when Hera arrives,” says David Jewett, an astronomer at the University of California and first author of a study on the subject recently published in Astrophysical Journal Letters. The cloud “looks like a swarm of bees slowly expanding,” adds the scientist, quoting from the Hubble press release. This “incredible” observation by the telescope “tells us for the first time what happens when you hit an asteroid and see things come out of it.”

The scattering of rocks in the impact indicates that DART blew a crater about 50 meters wide on the asteroid. Scientists will continue to study the trajectory of the rocks to understand “the directions that were taken out from the surface.”