“Something Unknown Is at Work” Behind NASA’s DART Planetary Defense Mission—and Astronomers Are Worried
The Debrief | July 10, 2025 | Ryan Whalen

NASA’s DART asteroid redirection mission may have inadvertently made future asteroid deflections much more challenging after its test sent boulders hurtling through space on unexpected trajectories.

I know what you’re thinking: Did they fire six deflections, or only one?

And you’re also thinking:

In September 2022, the DART mission successfully altered the orbit of asteroid moon Dimorphos. Unfortunately, the smaller space rocks that were dislodged when the kinetic impactor struck the natural satellite achieved three times the momentum of the spacecraft that created them.

The University of Maryland-led team (UMD) …

(anagrams are not appreciated)

… behind the new research paper on DART’s repercussions cautions that results demonstrate planetary defense may be considerably more complex than previously suspected, with the potential for many unintended consequences.

…

The researchers’ data came from an Italian cubesat named LICIACube, which was sent to follow up on the DART mission, as Earth-based observations would be inadequate for deriving precise measurements from the aftermath. In the LICIACube images, the team identified 104 boulders moving at speeds of up to 116 miles per hour and tracked their trajectories in three dimensions. These newly independent space rocks range in diameter from 0.2 to 3.6 meters.

Based on the craft’s impact, the team believes that its solar panels broke up larger boulders on Dimorphos’ surface before the main body hit.

Wait — the observation probe’s solar panels broke up larger boulders before the main body of the spacecraft hit? Or maybe they mean the original DART spacecraft? Either way, what speed did the craft attain relative to the asteroid? How many nanoseconds did the solar panels hit the asteroid before the rest of the craft did?

That first part of the impact most likely created the largest debris cluster, which holds roughly 70% of the known objects. This cluster raced away from the asteroid at high velocity.

Science: Do it and see what happens. (Only record the results if they don’t hurt your funding — hold onto them for 75 years otherwise.) FDA, CDC, and FAFO approved.