Recent images released by NASA have revealed new information about the origin of the asteroid system. Nearly two years ago, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, or DART, collided with Dimorphos, a small asteroid that is the moon of a larger space rock, Gemini, at about 14,000 miles per hour, testing a strategy for defense against a potential asteroid headed for Earth.
In a series of studies published this week, NASA researchers suggested that the mission did much more than achieve its original goal.
The five papers, published in the journal Nature Communications:
- “The geology and evolution of the Near-Earth binary asteroid system (65803) Didymos”.
- Evidence for multi-fragmentation and mass shedding of boulders on rubble-pile binary asteroid system (65803) Didymos.
- Fast boulder fracturing by thermal fatigue detected on stony asteroids.
- The bearing capacity of asteroid (65803) Didymos estimated from boulder tracks.
- Mechanical properties of rubble pile asteroids (Dimorphos, Itokawa, Ryugu, and Bennu) through surface boulder morphological analysis.
provided information on the origin, physical characteristics and evolution of asteroids and are helping scientists better understand binary asteroid systems, such as the planetary asteroid Gemini and the lunar (that is, satellite) asteroid. Deformed.
“These findings give us new insights into the ways in which asteroids can change over time,” said Thomas Statler, chief scientist for small solar system bodies at NASA headquarters in Washington.
They invented a weapon to defend the Earth against asteroids
In one study, researchers from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland studied the geology of asteroids. They found that Gemini was smoother at lower elevations, rockier at higher elevations, and had more craters, while the small moon Dimorphos had boulders of various sizes.
The team concluded that Dimorphos likely detached from Gemini in what is known as a “large mass ejection event,” which are natural processes that accelerate the detachment of smaller asteroids.
The team’s analysis suggested that Gemini has a surface age between 40 and 130 times older than Dimorphos, with the former estimated to be 12.5 million years old and the latter less than 300,000 years old, NASA said. Because Dimorph’s surface is younger, it probably had “low resistance” which, in turn, contributed to why DART was so successful in disrupting its orbit.
Other publications and knowledge were obtained by the researchers
In another paper, the researchers compared the shapes and sizes of the boulders on the two asteroids and found that Dimorphos likely formed gradually with material from Gemini, providing further evidence that the former was detached from the latter.
A third study compared the boulders in Dimorph with debris pile asteroids — asteroids made up of pieces of debris — and found that they share similar characteristics, concluding that all asteroids likely formed in a similar way.
The images and data collected by DART in the Gemini system provided a unique opportunity for an up-close geological look at a near-Earth binary asteroid system.
From these images alone, they were able to infer a lot of information about the geophysical properties of both Gemini and Dimorphos and expand the understanding of research scientists about the formation of these two asteroids. They also better understood why the DART was so effective at moving the Dimorph.
