NASA's DART mission reveals unexpected asteroid tumbling

3. oktober 2025 Rapporteret af AI

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully altered the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos more than expected, but scientists were puzzled by the discovery that the impact caused the moonlet to start tumbling. The mission, which involved crashing a spacecraft into Dimorphos in September 2022, aimed to test planetary defense techniques. Observations from ground-based telescopes confirmed the surprising rotational change.