Scientists held the first conference at which they discussed the collision of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) with Dimorph, a satellite of the asteroid Didim. But it discussed not only the consequences of the collision, but also other aspects that became known after it.. For example, the shape of Didyma, according to Space. com.

The images taken by DART show not only the side in which the device crashed, but also the opposite. This is due to the fact that the larger Didyme reflects the light of the sun that falls on it.. These images showed that the idea of \u200b\u200b\u200b\u200bthe shape of the Dimorph before the collision was not entirely correct..

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Prior to this, researchers had only fragmentary data on its shape, which showed that the distance between the poles of a celestial body would be its longest measurement.. But the pictures showed that it wasn't.. The shape of Dimorph does not resemble a bean, but rather a candy, something like M\u0026M.

The resulting data also showed that DART's collision with Dimorph accelerated its rotation around Didyma.. Now he makes a revolution not in 11 hours and 55 minutes, but in 11 hours and 23 minutes, that is, 32 minutes faster. More recent data showed that this time is 33 minutes and may change by another minute in the near future..

Although this seems like a small change, it is a significant one.. And this information may be useful in the future to protect the Earth from asteroids..

The researchers also calculated that 11 GJ of energy was released during the DART impact with the asteroid.. For comparison, the explosion of 1 ton of TNT releases 4 GJ of energy, and an ordinary family in the United States consumes about 40 GJ of energy per year..

In addition, it became known that the device crashed into Dimorph at an angle of 73 degrees, which is also important, since the angle of impact affects how the orbit of a celestial body changes..

Recall that the launch of the DART mission took place on November 24, 2021, it was carried out using the Falcon 9 launch vehicle.. On the night of September 27, he crashed into Dimorph at a speed of about 23,760 kilometers per hour..

The binary system was discovered back in 1996. It consists of two celestial bodies: Didyma with a diameter of about 780 meters, and Dimorph, whose diameter is estimated at 160 meters..