Dart mission successfully shifted its target’s orbit

arstechnica.com

15 pointsarunbahl2 comments

It's my understanding that the 160m size chunk of stuff in question has been described as a "rubble pile". Probably not stuck together very well.

What are the theories of what would happen if you hit such a thing, in a scenario where you needed to deflect it, with a high velocity 9000 kg mass (vs the much smaller and low cost DART), and instead of altering its orbit it broke up into a bunch of medium sized chunks?

A bunch of medium-sized chunks are far less likely to make it to ground, and less likely to do as much damage. Still a significantly better outcome.

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