00:00just last year nasa completed its dart mission or the double asteroid redirection test it was
00:08an unprecedented endeavor that was a resounding success decreasing the orbital period of the
00:13dimorphous and didymus asteroids by a whopping 33 minutes however now nasa says they've detected a
00:19debris field surrounding the asteroid pair a byproduct of their success planetary scientists
00:25at the university of california at los angeles david dewitt had this to say about the recent
00:29observations we see a cloud of boulders carrying mass and energy away from the impact target the
00:35numbers sizes and shapes of the boulders are consistent with them having been knocked off
00:39the surface of dimorphous by the impact here's that image of the asteroid which was taken in december
00:44within each of those little circles is one of these boulders jewett mentioned so far experts have been
00:49able to count some 37 bits of debris ranging from around 3 to 22 feet wide but they're not sticking
00:55around each bit is actually moving away from the asteroid at just over half a mile an hour now we'll
01:00have to wait for another spacecraft to catch up and see what damage was done to the asteroid but that
01:05won't happen until the harris spacecraft launches in 2024
Comments