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                           Astronomy Picture of the Day   
      
       Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our   
         fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation   
                       written by a professional astronomer.   
      
                                   2023 March 9   
      
                                 DART vs Dimorphos   
                    Image Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins APL, DART   
      
      Explanation: On the first planetary defense test mission from planet   
      Earth, the DART spacecraft captured this close-up on 26 September 2022,   
      three seconds before slamming into the surface of asteroid moonlet   
      Dimorphos. The spacecraft's outline with two long solar panels is   
      traced at its projected point of impact between two boulders. The   
      larger boulder is about 6.5 meters across. While the DART (Double   
      Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft had a mass of some 570 kilograms,   
      the estimated mass of Dimorphos, the smaller member of a near-Earth   
      binary asteroid system, was about 5 billion kilograms. The direct   
      kinetic impact of the spacecraft measurably altered the speed of   
      Dimorphos by a fraction of a percent, reducing its 12 hour orbital   
      period around its larger companion asteroid 65803 Didymos by about 33   
      minutes. Beyond successfully demonstrating a technique to change an   
      asteroid's orbit that can prevent future asteroid strikes on planet   
      Earth, the planetary-scale impact experiment has given the   
      150-meter-sized Dimorphos a comet-like tail of material.   
      
                        Tomorrow's picture: a great nebula   
        __________________________________________________________________   
      
          Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)   
               NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.   
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                         A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,   
                              NASA Science Activation   
                                & Michigan Tech. U.   
      
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