00:00 Back in September 2022, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirect Test, or DART mission for short,
00:09 did the incredible.
00:10 It traveled millions of miles through space and deliberately crashed into the dimorphous
00:14 asteroid, all in an attempt to change its rotational speed.
00:18 The mission was a resounding success, slowing the orbital period of the cosmic traveler
00:22 by 33 minutes per day.
00:24 That's despite the DART spacecraft weighing only around 1300 pounds and dimorphous weighing
00:28 around 11 billion pounds.
00:31 Since then, astronomers have been running simulations, attempting to divine what other
00:35 changes may occur, and they've just found something rather spectacular.
00:38 Aside from the shift in speed, the DART spacecraft also caused considerable damage to dimorphous.
00:44 However, now experts say, the asteroid could be healing.
00:48 Asteroids can vary greatly with density, some being like chunks of planets, while others
00:52 are essentially collected piles of rubble, held together by its own gravity.
00:56 The Didymus and Dimorphus asteroid pair is the latter, and after the DART spacecraft
01:00 slammed into it and ejected material out into space in a cone-like shape, the simulations
01:04 reveal that material might now be recollecting, effectively healing the asteroid.
01:10 [music]
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