Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission:
Months after the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart) mission crashed into asteroid Dimorphos, the Hubble telescope recently observed boulders escaping out.
- DART Mission was a spacecraft designed to test a method of deflecting an asteroid for planetary defense, using the “kinetic impactor” technique ,in simplest terms means smashing a thing into another thing.
- DART was the first-ever space mission to demonstrate asteroid deflection by kinetic impactor.
- The target of the spacecraft was a 160-meter-wide asteroid known as Dimorphos, which is a moonlet in orbit around the larger asteroid, Didymos.
- It was launched in November 2021.
- DART spacecraft successfully collided with Dimorphos on 26 September 2022, altering the asteroid’s orbit by 33 minutes.
- It is the first-time humanity intentionally changed the motion of a celestial object in space.
- Boulders is a geological term for a rock fragment that is larger than 25.6 centimetres (10.1 inches) in diameter.
- Boulders can be made up of various types of rocks, including igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks.
