Images from NASA's DART spacecraft reveal insights into near-Earth asteroid

Images that NASA's DART spacecraft captured of an asteroid moments before it intentionally collided with the object in 2022 have now allowed researchers to gain fresh insights into the celestial bodies.

The slew of studies published this week using data gathered from the asteroids Didymos and Dimorphos are an indication, researchers say, that the DART mission accomplished far more than just proving that potentially dangerous asteroids can be redirected from a trajectory toward Earth.

The findings published Tuesday across five research papers help to characterize the origin, evolution and physical characteristics of the two asteroids, located within 7 million miles of Earth. What the researchers discovered could help scientists better understand binary asteroids, such as Didymos and Dimorphos, in which the smaller body orbits the other.

NASA and other space agencies may also now be able to better plan a planetary defense mission in the future if an asteroid ever needs to be diverted from a collision course with Earth.

“These findings give us new insights into the ways that asteroids can change over time,” Thomas Statler, a program scientist in NASA's planetary science division, said in a statement. “This is important not just for understanding the near-Earth objects that are the focus of planetary defense, but also for our ability to read the history of our solar system from these remnants of planet formation."

DART photos reveal geology, age of asteroids

The photos and data were collected from a spacecraft that crashed into Dimorphos on Sept. 26, 2022, as part of NASA's inaugural Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART.

At just 530 feet in diameter, Dimorphos is a moonlet asteroid that orbits the larger 2,560-foot space rock Didymos.

Before crashing into Dimorphos, the DART craft was able to take images of the two celestial bodies, which are classified by NASA as near-Earth asteroids because their orbits bring them within 30 million miles of Earth’s own. The images allowed researchers to examine the largest boulders on Didymos and Dimorphos to determine their geological features and origins.

Primarily, an analysis of the craters and surface strength on Didymos indicated it formed about 12.5 million years ago, while its smaller companion, Dimorphos, formed about 300,000 years ago.

By studying the asteroids' respective surfaces, researchers were able to determine that the rocky Dimorphos likely formed from material loosed from the larger and smoother Didymos in a "large mass shedding event."

Another study found that a process called thermal fatigue rapidly broke up the boulders on the surface of Dimorphos, altering its physical characteristics faster than scientists previously believed.

“From these images alone, we were able to infer a great deal of information on geophysical properties of both Didymos and Dimorphos," according to a statement from Olivier Barnouin, a planetary geologist and geophysicist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, who led one of the studies. "We also better understand why DART was so effective in moving Dimorphos.”

What is the DART mission?

Launched in November 2021, DART traveled for more than 10 months before intentionally slamming into Dimorphos at roughly 14,000 mph.

Though neither Didymos nor Dimorphos posed a threat to Earth, the mission served as the first demonstration of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test. If an incoming asteroid is ever on a collision course with our planet, the space agency has said that the DART method could prove crucial for deflecting and changing the object's orbital path.

Because the recently published research offers a detailed picture of Didymos and Dimorphos before the crash, the findings could even help the European Space Agency as it prepares for its own follow-up mission to the system. Slated for October, the Hera mission will see the European Space Agency fly an uncrewed craft by the decimated asteroid to get a more up-close look at it.

Is NASA prepared for asteroids that could hit Earth?

Within the last few years, NASA has taken steps to protect humanity from threats posed by not only asteroids but also other inbound objects, such as comets.

To gauge whether authorities are prepared to defend Earth from space objects, NASA has hosted a series of exercises, the fifth and most recent of which occurred in April, with findings announced in June. It was the first such exercise to include about 100 international government representatives who gathered to work through a hypothetical scenario about an inbound asteroid.

The exercise was organized by the U.S. space agency's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which was established in 2016 to catalog near-Earth objects that could crash into the planet.

NASA is also working on an asteroid-hunting telescope known as the NEO Surveyor to find near-Earth objects capable of causing significant damage. Set to launch no earlier than June 2028, the telescope is designed to discover 90% of asteroids and comets that are 460 feet in size or larger and come within 30 million miles of Earth’s orbit.

Contributing: Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAY.

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com