SPACE ODDITY

6,000-Mile Debris Trail Spotted After NASA Spacecraft Smashes Into Asteroid

The SOAR Telescope in Chile captured arresting images of Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet recently used as a proving ground by DART.

A football stadium-sized asteroid moonlet intentionally hit by a NASA spacecraft last week has been photographed, revealing the long tail of debris left in its wake as a result of the crash. Dimorphos, an asteroid roughly 7 million miles away, was used as a proving ground by NASA as the agency attempted to test its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), a kinetic impact device designed to change a rock’s trajectory. After the test, NASA declared that history had been made. The debris cloud now trailing Dimorphos was captured by the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope in Chile on Monday, stretching over 6,000 miles long. “​​It is amazing how clearly we were able to capture the structure and extent of the aftermath in the days following the impact,” astronomer Teddy Kareta said. As SOAR continues to monitor the debris left by the collision, scientists plan to use the data to learn more about the asteroid’s surface, what it ejected after the impact, and how fast the debris left the rock’s main body—all in service of protecting Earth and its inhabitants, according to a press release from the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab.