Academic Journal
Momentum transfer from the DART mission kinetic impact on asteroid dimorphos
| Title: | Momentum transfer from the DART mission kinetic impact on asteroid dimorphos |
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| Authors: | Cheng, AF, Agrusa, HF, Barbee, BW, Meyer, AJ, Farnham, TL, Raducan, SD, Richardson, DC, Dotto, E, Zinzi, A, Della Corte, V, Statler, TS, Chesley, S, Naidu, SP, Hirabayashi, M, Li, J-Y, Eggl, S, Barnouin, OS, Chabot, NL, Chocron, S, Collins, GS, Daly, RT, Davison, TM, DeCoster, ME, Ernst, CM, Ferrari, F, Graninger, DM, Jacobson, SA, Jutzi, M, Kumamoto, KM, Luther, R, Lyzhoft, JR, Michel, P, Murdoch, N, Nakano, R, Palmer, E, Rivkin, AS, Scheeres, DJ, Stickle, AM, Sunshine, JM, Trigo-Rodriguez, JM, Vincent, J-B, Walker, JD, Wünnemann, K, Zhang, Y, Amoroso, M, Bertini, I, Brucato, JR, Capannolo, A, Cremonese, G, Dall'Ora, M, Deshapriya, PJD, Gai, I, Hasselmann, PH, Ieva, S, Impresario, G, Ivanovski, SL, Lavagna, M, Lucchetti, A, Epifani, EM, Modenini, D, Pajola, M, Palumbo, P, Perna, D, Pirrotta, S, Poggiali, G, Rossi, A, Tortora, P, Zannoni, M, Zanotti, G |
| Source: | 460 ; 457 |
| Publisher Information: | Nature Research |
| Publication Year: | 2023 |
| Collection: | Imperial College London: Spiral |
| Subject Geographic: | England |
| Description: | The NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission performed a kinetic impact on asteroid Dimorphos, the satellite of the binary asteroid (65803) Didymos, at 23:14 UTC on September 26, 2022 as a planetary defense test1. DART was the first hypervelocity impact experiment on an asteroid at size and velocity scales relevant to planetary defense, intended to validate kinetic impact as a means of asteroid deflection. Here we report the first determination of the momentum transferred to an asteroid by kinetic impact. Based on the change in the binary orbit period2, we find an instantaneous reduction in Dimorphos's along-track orbital velocity component of 2.70 ± 0.10 mm s-1, indicating enhanced momentum transfer due to recoil from ejecta streams produced by the impact3,4. For a Dimorphos bulk density range of 1,500 to 3,300 kg m-3, we find that the expected value of the momentum enhancement factor, [Formula: see text], ranges between 2.2 and 4.9, depending on the mass of Dimorphos. If Dimorphos and Didymos are assumed to have equal densities of 2,400 kg m-3, [Formula: see text]. These [Formula: see text] values indicate that significantly more momentum was transferred to Dimorphos from the escaping impact ejecta than was incident with DART. Therefore, the DART kinetic impact was highly effective in deflecting the asteroid Dimorphos. |
| Document Type: | article in journal/newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Relation: | Nature; http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/103214 |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41586-023-05878-z |
| Availability: | http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/103214 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05878-z |
| Rights: | © The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. ; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Accession Number: | edsbas.89BFC613 |
| Database: | BASE |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41586-023-05878-z |
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