Orbital Period Change of Dimorphos Due to the DART Kinetic Impact

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft successfully performed the first test of a kinetic impactor for asteroid deflection by impacting Dimorphos, the secondary of near-Earth binary asteroid (65803) Didymos, and changing the orbital period of Dimorphos. A change in orbital period of approximately 7 minutes was expected if the incident momentum from the DART spacecraft was directly transferred to the asteroid target in a perfectly inelastic collision1, but studies of the probable impact conditions and asteroid properties indicated that a considerable momentum enhancement (𝜷) was possible2,3. In the years prior to impact, we used lightcurve observations to accurately determine the pre-impact orbit parameters of Dimorphos with respect to Didymos4–6. Using new Earth-based lightcurve and radar observations, two independent approaches determined identical values of the change in the orbital period of Dimorphos as a result of the DART kinetic impact to be -33.0 ± 1.0 (3𝜎) minutes. This large orbit period change suggests that ejecta contributed a significant amount of momentum to the asteroid beyond what the DART spacecraft carried.