Dimorphos / Science
Science · Dimorphos
These are six research papers, all free to read on arXiv, about Dimorphos. We summarize each one in plain English from its abstract.
Our own artist's impression. No figures are taken from the papers.
Every number links to the paper it comes from.
What NASA's DART spacecraft did when it hit Dimorphos in 2022, and what the debris revealed.
What they foundDART shortened Dimorphos's orbit around Didymos by 33.0 ± 1.0 minutes, far more than the roughly 7 minutes expected from the spacecraft's momentum alone.
Ground-based light-curve observations before and after the impact.
Source for: Orbit period change from DART
What they foundDART slowed Dimorphos's orbital speed by 2.70 ± 0.10 mm/s, and recoil from the ejecta boosted the push well beyond the spacecraft's momentum.
Analysis based on the measured change in the binary orbit period.
Source for: Along-track speed change
What they foundHubble found a swarm of boulders thrown off by DART, the largest about 7 m across, totalling about 0.1% of Dimorphos's mass.
Deep Hubble Space Telescope images; 37 boulders were measured.
Source for: Largest ejected boulder
What they foundThe DART ejecta evolved from a cloud shaped by the asteroids' gravity into a tail pushed by sunlight, like a natural active asteroid.
Hubble images from 15 minutes to 18.5 days after impact.
What they foundThe best-matching impact simulation shows Dimorphos is very weak (cohesion under a few pascals) and less dense than about 2,400 kg/m³.
Numerical impact simulations matched to DART's measured deflection, ejecta cone and ejected mass.
What they foundBefore impact, this study predicted DART could leave Dimorphos wobbling or even tumbling, depending on its shape and the momentum transfer.
One analytic and two numerical methods.
New papers on Dimorphos, checked weekly, summarized after a person reads it.
No new papers on Dimorphos this week. We check arXiv every week.
We search arXiv for Dimorphos papers and keep the ones that add something new, are clearly written up and are relevant to a general reader. A person reads every abstract.
Summaries are written by us from each paper’s abstract, not copied. Diagrams are our own simplified drawings, not figures from the papers.
“Peer-reviewed” means arXiv lists a journal reference for the paper. Everything else is marked “Preprint”: shared openly, possibly before or without journal review.
Paper metadata courtesy of arXiv. Summaries written by us; read the original papers via the links. Paper metadata from arXiv.org, which does not endorse this site.