On September 27th (CET), the DART spacecraft (NASA) impacted onto the 160m size asteroid Dimorphos. The successful collision decreased the orbital period of Dimorphos in 33 minutes. In two years the Hera spacecraft (ESA) will be launched with an expected arrival in late 2026. It will study the DART crater in great detail but, for the time being, this full-scale experiment has already provided enough data as to calculate what measures are needed in eventual future kinetic mitigation attempts of potentially Earth-threatening asteroids: with an early enough warning it may be possible to push an asteroid out of its collision course with Earth. Important for the interpretation of DART impact outcomes are the laboratory impact experiments into heterogeneous targets, given that both Didymos and Dimorphos have been proven to be rubble-pile asteroids. We will present interpretation of some of DART kinetic impact results in the light of the impact experiments conducted at CAB INTA-CSIC.
CAB YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/CentrodeAstrobiologia
