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Dimorphos moves in a nearly equatorial, nearly circular orbit around Didymos, with an orbital period of 11.9 hours. Its orbit period is synchronous with its rotation, so that the same side of Dimorphos always faces Didymos. Dimorphos's orbit is retrograde relative to the ecliptic plane, in conformity with Didymos's retrograde rotation. [60]
The collision shortened Dimorphos' orbit by 32 minutes, greatly in excess of the pre-defined success threshold of 73 seconds. [7] [8] [9] DART's success in deflecting Dimorphos was due to the momentum transfer associated with the recoil of the ejected debris, which was substantially larger than that caused by the impact itself. [10]
Didymos is a binary asteroid with a satellite in its orbit. The minor-planet moon, named Dimorphos, [18] moves in a mostly circular retrograde orbit [19] with an orbital period of 11.9 hours. [11] [d] It measures approximately 160 meters (520 ft) in diameter compared to 780 meters (2,560 ft) for its primary (a mean diameter-ratio of 0.22). [20]
Ever since we learned that an asteroid sucker punched the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, we’ve been a little bit worried it might happen again, but with us in the crosshairs. Countless movies ...
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[2] Let x 1 and x 2 be the vector positions of the two bodies, and m 1 and m 2 be their masses. The goal is to determine the trajectories x 1 (t) and x 2 (t) for all times t, given the initial positions x 1 (t = 0) and x 2 (t = 0) and the initial velocities v 1 (t = 0) and v 2 (t = 0). When applied to the two masses, Newton's second law states that
"Dimorphos will then circle Didymos at least 73 seconds faster than before, so that its orbit is shortened by 10 to 20 minutes" If anyone can make sense of this, please provide an edit that makes better sense. Otherwise, delete the confusing sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.66.133.19 22:03, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
The result of the impact will be to change the orbital velocity and hence orbital period of Dimorphos, by a large enough amount that it can be measured from Earth. This will show for the first time that it is possible to change the orbit of a small 200-meter (660 ft) asteroid, around the size most likely to require active mitigation in the future.