Will NASA's DART Impact Permanently Alter the Orbit of an Asteroid?
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is set to impact the moonlet of the asteroid Didymos in 2022. The goal is to test whether a spacecraft can successfully alter the orbit of an asteroid. But what if the impact causes a more significant change than anticipated? Could this mission inadvertently permanently change the orbit of the asteroid, and what would be the potential consequences? These are the questions that scientists are eagerly awaiting answers to as the DART mission draws closer to its anticipated impact date.
source: Phys.org