NASA's DART spacecraft changed an asteroid's orbit around the sun

Wild that we went from "can we even deflect an asteroid" to measurably changing a solar orbit. 150 milliseconds sounds tiny until you realize compounding over decades makes that a meaningful trajectory shift. The engineering confidence this gives for actual planetary defense is massive.

> slowed the orbit of a pair of asteroids around the sun by more than 10 micrometers per second

Or in other words, 1 meter per day

Why not say that?

Is this a surprise?

That's interesting news. I wonder how much kinetic energy it had. This accumulation of information might be useful if an asteroid were to hit the Earth someday. At the very least, it's more realistic than sending oil drilling experts to an asteroid.

Interesting. I'd not considered the loss of mass as a means of propulsion.

Obviously there was the kinetic energy transfer but the impact ejacted some of the asteroids mass opposite to it's trajectory further increasing it's trajectory change.

Cool demonstration, hopefully not needed one day.

I'm annoyed at these nothing-burger titles...

Instead of pointing out that exact measurements finally came in (of long term movement change), journalist instead focused on the obvious outcome that everyone expects and knows

That's amazing

Is debris a problem? I think the ideal would be to embed or clamp a rocket on the target.

Well done, DART, which country did you aim it to?

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Wow, that's the first step!

However, the most efficient method would be actually land (I know - maybe even impossible?) on it, and use propellers to change its trajectory. We don't have too much throwaway high-tech to crash it on asteroids...