--- title: "Something Weird Is Going on With the Asteroid NASA Smashed" description: "Nearly a year ago, NASA successfully smashed an asteroid for the first time — but now, the asteroid in question is behaving strangely. " date: "2023-09-09" modified: "2023-09-09" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/dart-nasa-asteroid-orbit" categories: - "NASA" - "Space" tags: - "asteroids" - "dart" - "NASA" - "the digest" --- # Something Weird Is Going on With the Asteroid NASA Smashed ![Nearly a year ago, NASA successfully smashed an asteroid for the first time — but now, the asteroid in question is behaving strangely. ]() *\Image: ASI/NASA\* ## Darting Around Nearly a year ago, NASA successfully smashed an asteroid for the first time, in a landmark test to see whether we could divert a killer space rock before disaster — but now, the asteroid in question is behaving strangely. As [*New Scientist* reports](), a schoolteacher and his pupils seem to have discovered that the orbit of Dimorphos, the space rock socked by the [Double Asteroid Redirection Test]() (DART) last September, has apparently continued slowing down, unexpectedly, in the year since the refrigerator-sized craft smashed into it. Jonathan Swift, a math and science teacher at the Thacher School in California, and his team of student astronomers have discovered that Dimorphos, which [orbits around the larger near-Earth asteroid Didymos]() the way our Moon orbits the Earth, has been spinning consistently slower around Didymos than it did prior to the DART test. ## Slow Down To be clear, changing Dimorphos' trajectory was the point of the DART test. As [NASA announced]() a few weeks after the collision last fall, it succeeded at doing exactly that, bringing the asteroid's orbit down a full half hour, from 11 hours and 55 minutes to 11 hours and 23 minutes. Given that the space agency's "minimum successful orbit period change" was 73 seconds, this meant that the DART test, which showed whether or not Earth can smash near-Earth asteroids out of the way, was a resounding success. But as Swift and his charges at the [Thacher Observatory]() found when looking at Dimorphos' orbit more than a month after the initial collision, the asteroid's orbit seems to have *continued* to slow down — an unexplained turn of events, considering that most astronomers expected it to return to its original orbit speed pretty quickly. "The number we got was slightly larger, a change of 34 minutes," Swift told *New Scientist*. "That was inconsistent at an uncomfortable level." ## Theoretically Speaking Though NASA did say in its [original post-DART findings]() that the orbit slowing had a margin of error of plus or minus two minutes, the orbit's change is nevertheless a startling result — though some theories suggest that the impact may have "tumbled" Dimorphos' orbit, or unlocked it from Didymos' tidal forces. "We tried our best to find the crack in what we had done," Swift expounded, "but we couldn’t find anything." NASA will also be releasing a report soon on the DART mission's latest update, a spokesperson told *New Scientist* — but the agency will have to compete with Swift and his students, whose findings were shared this summer with the [American Astronomical Society](), which is publishing their paper soon. **More on asteroids:** [*AI Is Now Identifying Killer Asteroids Before They Approach Earth*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()