NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test has been hailed a success by the project's investigation team after it found that the satellite successfully altered the asteroid Dimorphos' orbit.
The test was the planet's first attempt at changing the motion of a celestial object and the "first full-scale demonstration of asteroid deflection technology," according to NASA.
Bill Nelson, the space agency's administrator, shared in a press release that this test shows we can defend ourselves from threats in outer space.
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"This mission shows that NASA is trying to be ready for whatever the universe throws at us. NASA has proven we are serious as a defender of the planet," Nelson said. "This is a watershed moment for planetary defense and all of humanity, demonstrating commitment from NASA's exceptional team and partners from around the world."
The DART investigation team is still observing the satellite's impact on the asteroid, acquiring data from ground-based observatories around the world.
While it has been shown to have affected the Dimorphos' orbit around its larger asteroid, going from 11 hours and 55 minutes to 11 hours and 23 minutes, the team is looking to measure the efficiency of momentum transfer from DART's collision.
The team will also analyze the "ejecta" caused by the 14,000-mile-per-hour collision. In addition, astronomers will look to understand the effect of the recoil from the ejecta, the tons of asteroidal rock displaced and launched into space by the impact. Other issues are also being investigated.
"DART has given us some fascinating data about both asteroid properties and the effectiveness of a kinetic impactor as a planetary defense technology," Nancy Chabot, the DART coordination lead, said in a press release. "The DART team is continuing to work on this rich dataset to fully understand this first planetary defense test of asteroid deflection."
However, even though the mission has been a success, Tom Statler, a DART program scientist at NASA, shared that we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves, as there are still more tests to accomplish.
"We should not be too eager to say that one test on one asteroid tells us exactly how every other asteroid would behave in a similar situation," Statler said. "But what we can do is use this test as an anchor point for our physics calculations in our simulations that tell us how different kinds of impacts in different situations should behave."
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