High-Speed Boulders and the Debris Field in DART Ejecta

Abstract

On 26 September 2022 the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft collided with Dimorphos, the moon of the near-Earth asteroid 65803 Didymos, in a full-scale demonstration of a kinetic impactor concept. The companion LICIACube spacecraft documented the aftermath, capturing images of the expansion and evolution of the ejecta from 29 to 243 s after the impact. We present results from our analyses of these observations, including an improved reduction of the data and new absolute calibration, an updated LICIACube trajectory, and a detailed description of the events and phenomena that were recorded throughout the flyby. One notable aspect of the ejecta was the existence of clusters of boulders, up to 3.6 m in radius, that were ejected at speeds up to 52 m/s. Our analysis of the spatial distribution of 104 of these boulders suggests that they are likely the remnants of larger boulders shattered by the DART spacecraft in the first stages of the impact. The amount of momentum contained in these boulders is more than 3 times that of the DART spacecraft, and it is directed primarily to the south, almost perpendicular to the DART trajectory. Recoil of Dimorphos from the ejection of these boulders has the potential to change its orbital plane by up to a degree and to impart a non-principal axis component to its rotation state. Damping timescales for these phenomena are such that the Hera spacecraft, arriving at the system in 2026, should be able to measure these effects.

47 pages, 14 figures(including 2 animated sequences) 2 tables

References in corpus (14)

• Successful Kinetic Impact into an Asteroid for Planetary Defense
• Momentum Transfer from the DART Mission Kinetic Impact on Asteroid Dimorphos
• Orbital Period Change of Dimorphos Due to the DART Kinetic Impact
• Tidal Evolution of Rubble Piles
• Ejecta from the DART-produced active asteroid Dimorphos
• Physical properties of asteroid Dimorphos as derived from the DART impact
• Light Curves and Colors of the Ejecta from Dimorphos after the DART Impact
• The Excited Spin State of Dimorphos Resulting from the DART Impact
• Predictions for the Dynamical States of the Didymos System before and after the Planned DART Impact
• The Dimorphos Boulder Swarm
• Direct $N$-body simulations of satellite formation around small asteroids: insights from DART's encounter with the Didymos system
• The Dynamical State of the Didymos System Before and After the DART Impact
• Energy Dissipation in Synchronous Binary Asteroids
• Delivery of DART Impact Ejecta to Mars and Earth: Opportunity for Meteor Observations

Cited by in corpus (1)

• HyperScout-H: the hyperspectral imager for the ESA Hera mission