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Orbital period change of Dimorphos due to the DART kinetic impact
Thomas, Cristina
Naidu, Shantanu
Scheirich, Peter
Moskovitz, Nicholas
Pravec, Petr
Chesley, Steven
Rivkin, Andrew
Osip, David
Lister, Tim
Benner, Lance
Brozović, Marina
Contreras, Carlos
Morrell, Nidia
Rożek, Agata
Kušnirák, Peter
Hornoch, Kamil
Mages, Declan
Taylor, Patrick
Seymour, Andrew
Snodgrass, Colin
Jørgensen, Uffe
Dominik, Martin
Skiff, Brian
Polakis, Tom
Knight, Matthew
Farnham, Tony
Giorgini, Jon
Rush, Brian
Bellerose, Julie
Salas, Pedro
Armentrout, William
Watts, Galen
Busch, Michael
Chatelain, Joseph
Gomez, Edward
Greenstreet, Sarah
Phillips, Liz
Bonavita, Mariangela
Burgdorf, Martin
Khalouei, Elahe
Longa-Peña, Penélope
Sajadian, Sedighe
Chabot, Nancy
Cheng, Andrew
Ryan, William
Ryan, Eileen
Holt, Carrie
Agrusa, Harrison
Springer Nature Limited
2023
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft successfully performed the first test of a kinetic impactor for asteroid deflection by impacting Dimorphos, the secondary of near-Earth binary asteroid (65803) Didymos, and changing the orbital period of Dimorphos. A change in orbital period of approximately 7 min was expected if the incident momentum from the DART spacecraft was directly transferred to the asteroid target in a perfectly inelastic collision1, but studies of the probable impact conditions and asteroid properties indicated that a considerable momentum enhancement (β) was possible2,3. In the years before impact, we used lightcurve observations to accurately determine the pre-impact orbit parameters of Dimorphos with respect to Didymos4–6. Here we report the change in the orbital period of Dimorphos as a result of the DART kinetic impact to be −33.0 ± 1.0 (3σ) min. Using new Earth-based lightcurve and radar observations, two independent approaches determined identical values for the change in the orbital period. This large orbit period change suggests that ejecta contributed a substantial amount of momentum to the asteroid beyond what the DART spacecraft carried.
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