Ejecta from the DART-produced active asteroid Dimorphos

Li, Jian-Yang and Hirabayashi, Masatoshi and Farnham, Tony L. and Sunshine, Jessica M. and Knight, Matthew M. and Tancredi, Gonzalo and Moreno, Fernando and Murphy, Brian and Opitom, Cyrielle and Chesley, Steven R. and Scheeres, Daniel J. and Thomas, Cristina A. and Fahnestock, Eugene G. and Cheng, Andrew F. and Dressel, Linda and Ernst, Carolyn M. and Ferrari, Fabio and Fitzsimmons, Alan and Ieva, Simone and Ivanovski, Stavro L. and Kareta, Theodore and Kolokolova, Ludmilla and Lister, Tim and Raducan, Sabina D. and Rivkin, Andrew S. and Rossi, Alessandro and Soldini, Stefania and Stickle, Angela M. and Vick, Alison and Vincent, Jean-Baptiste and Weaver, Harold A. and Bagnulo, Stefano and Bannister, Michele T. and Cambioni, Saverio and Campo Bagatin, Adriano and Chabot, Nancy L. and Cremonese, Gabriele and Daly, R. Terik and Dotto, Elisabetta and Glenar, David A. and Granvik, Mikael and Hasselmann, Pedro H. and Herreros, Isabel and Jacobson, Seth and Jutzi, Martin and Kohout, Tomas and La Forgia, Fiorangela and Lazzarin, Monica and Lin, Zhong-Yi and Lolachi, Ramin and Lucchetti, Alice and Makadia, Rahil and Mazzotta Epifani, Elena and Michel, Patrick and Migliorini, Alessandra and Moskovitz, Nicholas A. and Ormö, Jens and Pajola, Maurizio and Sánchez, Paul and Schwartz, Stephen R. and Snodgrass, Colin and Steckloff, Jordan and Stubbs, Timothy J. and Trigo-Rodríguez, Josep M. (2023) Ejecta from the DART-produced active asteroid Dimorphos. Nature, 616 (7957), pp. 452-456. Nature Publishing Group. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-05811-4. ISSN 0028-0836.

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Official URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05811-4

Abstract

Some active asteroids have been proposed to be formed as a result of impact events. Because active asteroids are generally discovered by chance only after their tails have fully formed, the process of how impact ejecta evolve into a tail has, to our knowledge, not been directly observed. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission of NASA, in addition to having successfully changed the orbital period of Dimorphos, demonstrated the activation process of an asteroid resulting from an impact under precisely known conditions. Here we report the observations of the DART impact ejecta with the Hubble Space Telescope from impact time T + 15 min to T + 18.5 days at spatial resolutions of around 2.1 km per pixel. Our observations reveal the complex evolution of the ejecta, which are first dominated by the gravitational interaction between the Didymos binary system and the ejected dust and subsequently by solar radiation pressure. The lowest-speed ejecta dispersed through a sustained tail that had a consistent morphology with previously observed asteroid tails thought to be produced by an impact. The evolution of the ejecta after the controlled impact experiment of DART thus provides a framework for understanding the fundamental mechanisms that act on asteroids disrupted by a natural impact

Item URL in elib:

https://elib.dlr.de/195257/

Document Type:

Article

Title:

Ejecta from the DART-produced active asteroid Dimorphos

Authors:

Authors	Institution or Email of Authors	Author's ORCID iD	ORCID Put Code
Li, Jian-Yang	Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Hirabayashi, Masatoshi	Department of Geosciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA; Department of Aerospace Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Farnham, Tony L.	Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4767-9861	UNSPECIFIED
Sunshine, Jessica M.	Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Knight, Matthew M.	Physics Department, United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, USA	https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2781-6897	UNSPECIFIED
Tancredi, Gonzalo	Departamento de Astronomía, Facultad de Ciencias, Udelar, Uruguay	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4943-8623	UNSPECIFIED
Moreno, Fernando	Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC, Granada, Spain	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Murphy, Brian	University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Opitom, Cyrielle	University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, UK	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Chesley, Steven R.	JPL, Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Scheeres, Daniel J.	Aerospace Engineering Sciences, Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA	https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0558-3842	UNSPECIFIED
Thomas, Cristina A.	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Fahnestock, Eugene G.	Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Cheng, Andrew F.	Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Dressel, Linda	Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Ernst, Carolyn M.	The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723, USA.	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Ferrari, Fabio	Space Research and Planetary Sciences, Physics Institute, University of Bern, Bern, 3012, Switzerland	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Fitzsimmons, Alan	Astrophysics & Planetary Science Division, The Queen's University Belfast, UK	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Ieva, Simone	INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, Rome, Italy	https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8694-9038	UNSPECIFIED
Ivanovski, Stavro L.	INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Italy	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Kareta, Theodore	Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, AZ, USA ; Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Kolokolova, Ludmilla	Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Lister, Tim	Las Cumbres Observatory, Goleta, CA, USA	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3818-7769	UNSPECIFIED
Raducan, Sabina D.	Space Research and Planetary Sciences, Physics Institute, University of Bern, Bern, 3012, Switzerland	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Rivkin, Andrew S.	Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Rossi, Alessandro	IFAC-CNR, Sesto Fiorentino I-50019, Italy	https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9311-2869	UNSPECIFIED
Soldini, Stefania	Department of Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Stickle, Angela M.	Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, MD, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Vick, Alison	Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Vincent, Jean-Baptiste	UNSPECIFIED	https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6575-3079	135769365
Weaver, Harold A.	Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, MD, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Bagnulo, Stefano	Armagh Observatory and Planetarium, Armagh, UK	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7156-8029	UNSPECIFIED
Bannister, Michele T.	School of Physical and Chemical Sciences, Te Kura Matū, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Cambioni, Saverio	Department of Earth, Atmospheric & Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Campo Bagatin, Adriano	Departamento de Física, Ingeniería de Sistemas y Teoría de la Señal. P.O. Box 99, 03080 Alicante,	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Chabot, Nancy L.	The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD 20723, USA.	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Cremonese, Gabriele	INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Daly, R. Terik	JHU Applied Physics Laboratory	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Dotto, Elisabetta	Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, Italy	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Glenar, David A.	Center for Space Science and Technology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA ; Solar System Exploration Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Granvik, Mikael	Univ. Helsinki Observatory	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Hasselmann, Pedro H.	INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, Rome, Italy	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Herreros, Isabel	Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain	https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5284-8060	UNSPECIFIED
Jacobson, Seth	Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4952-9007	UNSPECIFIED
Jutzi, Martin	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Kohout, Tomas	Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 64, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland; Ursa Finnish Fireball Network, Kopernikuksentie 1, FI-00130 Helsinki, Finland	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
La Forgia, Fiorangela	University of Padova, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vicolo dell'Osservatorio 3, 35122 Padova, Italy	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Lazzarin, Monica	University of Padova, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Vicolo dell'Osservatorio 3, 35122 Padova, Italy	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Lin, Zhong-Yi	National Central University, Graduate Institute of Astronomy, 300 Chung-Da Rd, Chung-Li 32054 Taiwan	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Lolachi, Ramin	Center for Space Science and Technology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA ; Solar System Exploration Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA	https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5764-7639	UNSPECIFIED
Lucchetti, Alice	Center of Studies and Activities for Space, CISAS, G. Colombo, University of Padova, via Venezia 15, 35131, Padova, Italy	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Makadia, Rahil	Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Mazzotta Epifani, Elena	INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, Rome, Italy	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Michel, Patrick	Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, France	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Migliorini, Alessandra	INAF - Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology, Rome, Italy	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Moskovitz, Nicholas A.	Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, AZ, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Ormö, Jens	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Pajola, Maurizio	Centro di Ateneo di Studi ed Attività Spaziali “Giuseppe Colombo” (CISAS), University of Padova, Via Venezia 15, 35131 Padova, Italy	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Sánchez, Paul	Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO 80303, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Schwartz, Stephen R.	Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Snodgrass, Colin	University of Edinburgh, Institute for Astronomy, UK	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Steckloff, Jordan	Planetary Science Institute	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Stubbs, Timothy J.	Solar System Exploration Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED
Trigo-Rodríguez, Josep M.	Institute of Space Sciences (ICE, CSIC), Cerdanyola del Vallès, E-08193 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain; Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC), Ed. Nexus, E-08034 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain	UNSPECIFIED	UNSPECIFIED

Date:

April 2023

Journal or Publication Title:

Nature

Refereed publication:

Yes

Open Access:

Yes

Gold Open Access:

In SCOPUS:

Yes

In ISI Web of Science:

Yes

Volume:

616

DOI:

10.1038/s41586-023-05811-4

Page Range:

pp. 452-456

Publisher:

Nature Publishing Group

ISSN:

0028-0836

Status:

Published

Keywords:

asteroids, planetary defense, DART

HGF - Research field:

Aeronautics, Space and Transport

HGF - Program:

Space

HGF - Program Themes:

Space Exploration

DLR - Research area:

Raumfahrt

DLR - Program:

R EW - Space Exploration

DLR - Research theme (Project):

R - Exploration of the Solar System

Location:

Berlin-Adlershof

Institutes and Institutions:

Institute of Planetary Research > Planetary Geodesy

Deposited By:

Vincent, Jean-Baptiste

Deposited On:

26 May 2023 12:50

Last Modified:

26 May 2023 12:51

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