DART Stories

APL's Geffrey Ottman (left), electrical systems engineer on NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) and APL's Betsy Congdon (center), who served as the mechanical systems engineer on the mission, accepted the 2024 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Space Systems Award

NASA’s DART Team Earns AIAA Space Systems Award for Pioneering Mission

2 min read

NASA’s DART (Double​ Asteroid Redirection Test) mission continues to yield scientific discoveries and garner accolades for its groundbreaking achievements. The mission team was recently recognized by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)with the 2024 Space Systems Award during this year’s AIAA ASCEND event,…

Article3 months ago
The asteroid’s triangular ridge (first panel from left), and the so-called smooth region, and its likely older, rougher “highland” region (second panel from left) can be explained through a combination of slope processes controlled by elevation (third panel from left). The fourth panel shows the effects of spin-up disruption that Didymos likely underwent to form Dimorphos.

NASA’s DART Mission Sheds New Light on Target Binary Asteroid System

5 min read

In studying data collected from NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission, which in 2022 sent a spacecraft to intentionally collide with the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, the mission’s science team has discovered new information on the origins of the target binary asteroid system…

Article4 months ago
This artist’s concept shows ESA’s Hera spacecraft and its CubeSats in orbit around the Dimorphos moonlet

NASA Selects Participating Scientists to Join ESA’s Hera Mission

3 min read

NASA has selected 12 participating scientists to join ESA’s (European Space Agency) Hera mission, which is scheduled to launch in October 2024. Hera will study the binary asteroid system Didymos, including the moonlet Dimorphos, which was impacted by NASA’s DART…

Article5 months ago

NASA, Partners Conduct Fifth Asteroid Impact Exercise, Release Summary

4 min read

For the benefit of all, NASA released a summary Thursday of the fifth biennial Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise. NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, in partnership with FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and with the assistance of the U.S. Department…

News Release

NASA Study: Asteroid’s Orbit, Shape Changed After DART Impact

5 min read

After NASA’s historic Double Asteroid Redirection Test, a JPL-led study has shown that the shape of asteroid Dimorphos has changed and its orbit has shrunk. When NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) deliberately smashed into a 560-foot-wide (170-meter-wide) asteroid on…

Article8 months ago

DART Team Earns Smithsonian Michael Collins Trophy for Successful Planetary Defense Test Mission

3 min read

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will be honored with the 2024 Michael Collins Trophy for Current Achievement. For its work developing and managing the first-ever planetary defense test mission, the team comprised by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) and the…

Article1 year ago

NASA Employees Win Top Federal Award for Asteroid Deflection Mission

0 min read

NASA’s Brian Key and Scott Bellamy accepted the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal on behalf of a mission team for the first planetary defense test during a ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in…

News Release

Double Asteroid Redirection Test Post-Impact Image Gallery

1 min read

After 10 months flying in space, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) – the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration – successfully impacted its asteroid target on Monday, September 26 at 7:14 p.m. EDT. as the world’s first attempt to…

Article1 year ago

From Impact to Innovation: A Year of Science and Triumph for Historic DART Mission

8 min read

From Impact to Innovation: A Year of Science and Triumph for Historic DART Mission

Article1 year ago
Against a black background, the image of the asteroid Dimorphos, with compass arrows, scale bar, and color key for reference. The bright white object at lower left is Dimorphos. It has a blue dust tail extending diagonally to the upper right. A cluster of blue dots (marked by white circles) surrounds the asteroid. These are boulders that were knocked off the asteroid when, on September 26, 2022, NASA deliberately slammed the half-ton DART impactor spacecraft into the asteroid as a test of what it would take to deflect some future asteroid from hitting Earth. Hubble photographed the slow-moving boulders with the Wide Field Camera 3 in December 2022. The color results from assigning a blue hue to the monochromatic (grayscale) image.

Hubble Sees Boulders Escaping from Asteroid Dimorphos

4 min read

The popular 1954 rock song “Shake, Rattle and Roll,” could be the theme music for the Hubble Space Telescope‘s latest discovery about what is happening to the asteroid Dimorphos in the aftermath of NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) experiment.…

Article1 year ago