from the time-someone-did-a-bit-of-dusting dept.
NASA's DART asteroid impact test left a trail over 6,000 miles long:
NASA's successful asteroid impact test created a beautiful mess, apparently. As the Associated Press reports, astronomers using the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope in Chile have captured an image revealing that DART's collision with Dimorphos left a trail of dust and other debris measuring over 6,000 miles long. The spacecraft wasn't solely responsible — rather, the Sun's radiation pressure pushed the material away like it would with a comet's tail.
[...] The capture was about more than obtaining a dramatic snapshot, of course. Scientists will use data collected using SOAR, the Astronomical Event Observatory Network and other observers to understand more about the collision and Dimorphos itself. They'll determine the amount and speed of material ejected from the asteroid, and whether or not DART produced large debris chunks or 'merely' fine dust. Those will help understand how spacecraft can alter an asteroid's orbit, and potentially improve Earth's defenses against wayward cosmic rocks.
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The orbital change was even bigger than scientists expected:
It worked! Humanity has, for the first time, purposely moved a celestial object.
As a test of a potential asteroid-deflection scheme, NASA's DART spacecraft shortened the orbit of asteroid Dimorphos by 32 minutes — a far greater change than astronomers expected.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, rammed into the tiny asteroid at about 22,500 kilometers per hour on September 26 (SN: 9/26/22). The goal was to move Dimorphos slightly closer to the larger asteroid it orbits, Didymos.
[...] The minimum change for the DART team to declare success was 73 seconds — a hurdle the mission overshot by more than 30 minutes. The team thinks the spectacular plume of debris that the impactor kicked up gave the mission extra oomph. The impact itself gave some momentum to the asteroid, but the debris flying off in the other direction pushed it even more — like a temporary rocket engine.
"This is a very exciting and promising result for planetary defense," Chabot said. But the change in orbital period was just 4 percent. "It just gave it a small nudge," she said. So knowing an asteroid is coming is crucial to future success. For something similar to work on an asteroid headed for Earth, "you'd want to do it years in advance," Chabot said. An upcoming space telescope called Near Earth Asteroid Surveyor is one of many projects intended to give that early warning.
Previously:
NASA's DART Asteroid Impact Test Left a Trail Over 6,000 Miles Long
New Hubble and Webb Images Capture Aftermath of DART Asteroid Smash Up
NASA's DART Successfully Collides With Asteroid and Makes a Show
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by HammeredGlass on Friday October 07 2022, @03:11PM (2 children)
- some ecoterrorist who doesn't appreciate how big space is compared to our oceans.
(Score: 4, Touché) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday October 07 2022, @05:16PM (1 child)
People used to say that the Oceans and atmosphere were too big for Human activity to negatively impact them too. :)
I'll just get my coat ...
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by HammeredGlass on Saturday October 08 2022, @03:16PM
it is a tiny effect after all. the earth was going in that direction anyways as it is exiting the most recent three million year old ice age which we are merely in an interglacial period thereof.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Friday October 07 2022, @03:49PM (2 children)
But how much did it change the trajectory?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday October 07 2022, @05:07PM
That's, of course, the main thing they were after. And anything light enough to be pushed a long distance by sunlight that quickly won't be what we're looking for.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2022, @08:19PM
Just saw this on NASA Twitter
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 07 2022, @05:42PM
All the bits and pieces and particles in that trail have different trajectories, and different velocities. If they retained the same trajectories and velocities, there would be no trail, it would still all be on the asteroid.
So, given time, that trail will grow, and grow, and grow. Eventually they will be dispersed over such a large volume of space, no one will recognize it for a trail at all.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 07 2022, @08:29PM
Or 5.674×106 smoots [wolframalpha.com]
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Saturday October 08 2022, @02:16AM
As an American I'm going to need that measurement in some other unit. What is that in football fields, Texas, Libraries of Congress or somesuch?
(Score: -1, Spam) by aristarchus 2 on Saturday October 08 2022, @03:16AM
It is official; Netcraft now confirms: SN is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered SN community when IDC confirmed that SN posting has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of Slashdot. Coming close on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that SN has lost more users, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. SN is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in a recent survey of news aggregators.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict SN's future. The hand writing is on the wall: SN faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for SN because SN is dying. Things are looking very bad for SN. As many of us are already aware, SN continues to lose users and subscribers. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
SN is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its users. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time SN admins c0lo and The Mighty Buzzard only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: SN is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Slashdot leader whipslash states that there are 7000 users of Slashdot. How many users of Pipedot are there? Let's see. The number of Slashdot versus Pipedot posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Pipedot users. SN posts on Usenet are about one hundredth of the volume of Pipedot posts. Therefore there are about 14 users of SN. A recent article put Hacker News at about 80 percent of the news aggregator market. Therefore there are (7000+1400)*4 = 33600 Hacker News users. This is consistent with the number of Hacker News Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of NCommander, abysmal management and so on, SN was taken over by martyb who is another troubled admin. Now martyb is also gone, and SN's corpse was turned over to Janrinok the Censor.
All major surveys show that SN has steadily declined in users and comments. SN is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If SN is to survive at all it will be among gun nuts like Runaway and khallow. SN continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save SN from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, SN is dead.
Fact: SN is dying