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NASA’s DART spacecraft changed the path of the Didymos–Dimorphos asteroid system around the Sun by a measurable but very small amount: its roughly 770-day solar orbit became about 0.15 seconds shorter. The impact’s larger effect was closer to home within the system: Dimorphos now takes about 33 minutes less to orbit Didymos. Neither asteroid threatens Earth; the result is a demonstration of a potential planetary-defense technique, not a rescue from an imminent impact.
Two orbits changed, by very different amounts
“Asteroid’s orbit” can mean two different things here. Dimorphos circles the larger asteroid Didymos, and together the pair travel around the Sun. DART struck Dimorphos, changing both motions. NASA reported the solar-orbit result on March 6, 2026.
| Motion | Before impact | Measured result |
|---|---|---|
| Dimorphos around Didymos | About 11 hours 55 minutes per orbit | About 33 minutes 15 seconds shorter; later period about 11 hours 22 minutes 3 seconds |
| Didymos–Dimorphos system around the Sun | About 770 days per orbit | About 0.15 seconds shorter |
The pair are gravitationally bound and orbit a shared center of mass. By ejecting material from Dimorphos, the collision changed the momentum of the binary system as a whole, producing a tiny alteration in its path around the Sun. NASA describes this as the first measured change by a human-made object to a celestial body’s path around the Sun. NASA’s report on the solar-orbit change gives the result and its context.
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DART, short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, targeted Dimorphos, a moonlet roughly 160–170 meters wide that orbits Didymos, which is roughly 780–805 meters across. The size ranges reflect estimates reported from different measurements. Neither object was on a collision course with Earth; the binary system was chosen as a safe test target whose orbital change could be measured. NASA’s impact announcement describes the target and the test.
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The goal was to demonstrate a kinetic impactor: a spacecraft deliberately collides with an asteroid to transfer momentum and alter its motion. The impact does not need to shove an asteroid a dramatic distance at once. A small velocity change, applied early enough, can accumulate into a different position years later.
How the impact unfolded
DART launched on November 24, 2021, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. On September 26, 2022 UTC (September 27 in U.S. Eastern Daylight Time), the approximately 570-kilogram spacecraft struck Dimorphos at about 22,530 kilometers per hour. In the final approach, it navigated roughly 90,000 kilometers to distinguish the small moonlet from Didymos and hit its target. The mission was managed by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office. NASA’s DART overview summarizes the mission.
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Why reports give 32 minutes or 33 minutes
Before impact, Dimorphos completed an orbit around Didymos in about 11 hours 55 minutes. NASA’s initial analysis found the period had shortened by about 32 minutes, with an uncertainty of approximately plus or minus two minutes. That was already far beyond the mission’s minimum success criterion of a 73-second change. The early result was a preliminary measurement, not the final settled value. NASA’s initial orbital-change announcement reports that estimate and threshold.
As material continued escaping after the collision, Dimorphos’s orbit evolved. Later analysis refined the reduction to about 33 minutes 15 seconds, with a later orbital period of roughly 11 hours 22 minutes 3 seconds. The immediate post-impact period was about 11 hours 22 minutes 37 seconds. These figures describe successive stages of observation and modeling, rather than conflicting claims. The average separation between the two bodies also decreased by roughly 37 meters, from about 1,189 meters to about 1,152 meters. NASA’s later study summary describes the evolving orbit and system shape.
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How a small spacecraft changed the pair’s solar orbit
The solar-orbit change is much smaller than the moonlet’s local orbital change: about 0.15 seconds over a roughly 770-day trip around the Sun. NASA’s analysis also reports an orbital-speed change of approximately 11.7 micrometers per second—about 1.7 inches per hour. That is not a dramatic visible displacement. It is a precise difference in the modeled motion of the binary system.
The impact’s effect included more than the spacecraft’s direct momentum. Rock and dust blasted away from Dimorphos, carrying momentum with them; the escaping material’s recoil added to the push on the asteroid system. NASA’s 2026 summary gives a momentum-enhancement factor of about 2 for its solar-orbit analysis, meaning the ejecta roughly doubled the spacecraft’s direct contribution in that analysis. The factor depends on the model and quantity being considered, so it should not be treated as one universal value for every asteroid impact.
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Researchers inferred the small solar-orbit change from precise observations and orbital modeling—not from a conspicuous before-and-after image. The evidence included ground-based optical and radar observations, stellar occultations (when an asteroid briefly blocks a star), and tracking of the binary’s motion before and after impact. NASA’s account describes the observations behind the result.
What the test establishes—and what it does not
- It establishes that a spacecraft can autonomously hit a small asteroid moonlet and measurably change its orbital motion. It also provides evidence that ejecta can amplify the momentum transferred in an impact.
- It does not establish that every hazardous asteroid can be deflected, that a last-minute strike would work, or that a solid metallic asteroid would respond like Dimorphos.
- It did not move a known threat away from Earth. The target system posed no impact hazard, and this test was not a planetary-defense operation against an incoming asteroid.
Dimorphos appears loosely packed, based on observations, but its interior was not sampled directly. A more coherent body might eject less material and receive less momentum enhancement. A real response would depend on an asteroid’s size, mass, density, spin, shape, composition and internal structure, as well as the impactor’s mass and speed, the required miss distance, and how much warning time is available. NASA notes that more work is needed to establish how kinetic impact would perform against a more solid object. NASA’s planetary-defense overview discusses the method’s limits.
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Why early detection matters as much as impact force
A small change in velocity can matter if applied years or decades before a predicted encounter: the asteroid keeps traveling on its altered path, and the positional difference can grow over time. That principle is why DART’s precise, small solar-orbit result matters scientifically. It is not evidence that a 0.15-second change would itself be enough to avert a particular collision; the necessary change depends on the threat and available lead time.
Deflection is only useful if an object is found early enough to assess and respond to it. NASA’s planned NEO Surveyor space telescope is intended to help discover and characterize potentially hazardous asteroids and comets, including dark objects that are difficult to detect in visible light. ESA’s Hera mission was designed to follow up at Didymos and Dimorphos and examine consequences of the impact, including the crater and Dimorphos’s mass. DART observations also help improve models of how different asteroids respond to a collision. Mission schedules and operational status can change, so these descriptions do not imply a particular current launch or arrival date.
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