The Planetary Science Journal (Jan 2025)
Dimorphos’s Material Properties and Estimates of Crater Size from the DART Impact
- Angela M. Stickle,
- Kathryn M. Kumamoto,
- Dawn M. Graninger,
- Mallory E. DeCoster,
- Wendy K. Caldwell,
- Jason M. Pearl,
- J. Michael Owen,
- Olivier Barnouin,
- Gareth S. Collins,
- R. Terik Daly,
- Isabel Herreros,
- Jens Ormö,
- Jessica Sunshine,
- Carolyn M. Ernst,
- Toshi Hirabayashi,
- Simone Marchi,
- Laura Parro,
- Harrison Agrusa,
- Megan Bruck Syal,
- Nancy L. Chabot,
- Andy F. Cheng,
- Thomas M. Davison,
- Elisabetta Dotto,
- Eugene G. Fahenstock,
- Fabio Ferrari,
- Martin Jutzi,
- Alice Lucchetti,
- Robert Luther,
- Nilanjan Mitra,
- Maurizio Pajola,
- Sabina Raducan,
- KT Ramesh,
- Andrew S. Rivkin,
- Alessandro Rossi,
- Paul Sánchez,
- Stephen R. Schwartz,
- Stefania Soldini,
- Jordan K. Steckloff,
- Filippo Tusberti,
- Kai Wünnemann,
- Yun Zhang
Affiliations
- Angela M. Stickle
- ORCiD
- Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory , 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD, 20723, USA ; [email protected]
- Kathryn M. Kumamoto
- ORCiD
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , Livermore, CA, USA
- Dawn M. Graninger
- ORCiD
- Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory , 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD, 20723, USA ; [email protected]
- Mallory E. DeCoster
- ORCiD
- Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory , 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD, 20723, USA ; [email protected]
- Wendy K. Caldwell
- ORCiD
- Los Alamos National Laboratory , Los Alamos, NM, USA
- Jason M. Pearl
- ORCiD
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , Livermore, CA, USA
- J. Michael Owen
- ORCiD
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , Livermore, CA, USA
- Olivier Barnouin
- ORCiD
- Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory , 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD, 20723, USA ; [email protected]
- Gareth S. Collins
- ORCiD
- Department of Earth Science & Engineering, Imperial College , London, UK
- R. Terik Daly
- ORCiD
- Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory , 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD, 20723, USA ; [email protected]
- Isabel Herreros
- ORCiD
- Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) CSIC-INTA , Carretera de Ajalvir km4, 28850 Torrejón de Ardoz, Spain
- Jens Ormö
- ORCiD
- Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) CSIC-INTA , Carretera de Ajalvir km4, 28850 Torrejón de Ardoz, Spain
- Jessica Sunshine
- ORCiD
- University of Maryland , College Park, MD, USA
- Carolyn M. Ernst
- ORCiD
- Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory , 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD, 20723, USA ; [email protected]
- Toshi Hirabayashi
- ORCiD
- Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology , Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
- Simone Marchi
- ORCiD
- Southwest Research Institute , Boulder, CO, USA
- Laura Parro
- Universidad de Alicante , Spain
- Harrison Agrusa
- ORCiD
- University of Maryland , College Park, MD, USA; Universite Côte d'Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique , Laboratoire Lagrange, Nice, France
- Megan Bruck Syal
- ORCiD
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , Livermore, CA, USA
- Nancy L. Chabot
- ORCiD
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , Livermore, CA, USA
- Andy F. Cheng
- Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory , 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD, 20723, USA ; [email protected]
- Thomas M. Davison
- ORCiD
- Department of Earth Science & Engineering, Imperial College , London, UK
- Elisabetta Dotto
- INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma , Rome, Italy
- Eugene G. Fahenstock
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology , Pasadena, CA, USA
- Fabio Ferrari
- Department of Aerospace Science and Technology, Politecnico di Milano , Milan 20159, Italy
- Martin Jutzi
- Space Research and Planetary Sciences, Physikalisches Institut, University of Bern , Bern, Switzerland
- Alice Lucchetti
- ORCiD
- INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova , Padua, Italy
- Robert Luther
- ORCiD
- Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung , Berlin, Germany
- Nilanjan Mitra
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, J ohns Hopkins University , Baltimore MD, USA
- Maurizio Pajola
- INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova , Padua, Italy
- Sabina Raducan
- ORCiD
- Space Research and Planetary Sciences, Physikalisches Institut, University of Bern , Bern, Switzerland
- KT Ramesh
- ORCiD
- Department of Mechanical Engineering, J ohns Hopkins University , Baltimore MD, USA
- Andrew S. Rivkin
- ORCiD
- Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory , 11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Laurel, MD, 20723, USA ; [email protected]
- Alessandro Rossi
- ORCiD
- Istituto di Fisica Applicata “Nello Carrara” (IFAC-CNR), Sesto Fiorentino 50019, Italy
- Paul Sánchez
- University of Colorado , Boulder, CO, USA
- Stephen R. Schwartz
- Planetary Science Institute , Tucson, AZ, USA
- Stefania Soldini
- Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, University of Liverpool , Liverpool L69 3GH, UK
- Jordan K. Steckloff
- Planetary Science Institute , Tucson, AZ, USA
- Filippo Tusberti
- ORCiD
- INAF Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova , Padua, Italy
- Kai Wünnemann
- Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung , Berlin, Germany
- Yun Zhang
- ORCiD
- University of Maryland , College Park, MD, USA
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/ad944d
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 6,
no. 2
p. 38
Abstract
On 2022 September 26, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft intentionally collided with Dimorphos, the moon of the binary asteroid system 65803 Didymos. This collision provided the first full-scale test of a kinetic impactor for planetary defense. Images from DART’s DRACO camera revealed Dimorphos to be an oblate spheroid covered in boulders of varying sizes and shapes. Very little was known about Dimorphos prior to DART’s impact, including its shape, structure, and material properties. Approach observations and those following the DART impact have provided crucial knowledge that narrows the parameter space relevant to modeling the impact into Dimorphos. Here we present the results of a suite of hydrocode simulations of the DART impact on Dimorphos. Despite remaining uncertainties, initial models of DART’s kinetic impact provide important information about the results of DART (e.g., potential crater size and morphology, ejecta mass) and the properties of Dimorphos. Simulations here suggest that Dimorphos has near-surface strength ranging from a few Pascals to tens of kPa, which corresponds to crater sizes of ∼40–60 m. Simulated crater sizes provide a crucial comparison metric for the European Space Agency Hera mission when it arrives at the Didymos system. Hera’s measurement of crater size in combination with measurement of Dimorphos’s mass will allow us to assess our simulations and provide the information needed to make the DART impact experiment both the first test of a planetary defense mitigation mission and the first full-scale planetary defense simulation validation exercise.
Keywords
