Asteroid hit by NASA spacecraft is behaving unexpectedly

A high school teacher and his students have discovered that an asteroid hit by a NASA spacecraft, in a test run for saving Earth from a collision, is behaving unexpectedly. The find could have implications for future planetary defence missions.

On 27 September 2022, NASA intentionally crashed its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos. The goal was to slow the space rock’s nearly 12-hour orbit around a parent asteroid, called Didymos, and…