News about Matthew Knight

The US space agency's DART spacecraft intentionally crashed into Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet in Didymos' double-asteroid system, on September 26, 19:14 ET. Despite the fact that the asteroid posed no threat to Earth, the mission was nevertheless optimistic that if the mission goes well, it might have served as a shield against future space threats. Multiple studies have shown that it was indeed, by shaving 33 minutes off Dimorphos' orbit.

As part of the first ever planetary defence drill, it gripped the world. NASA intentionally smashing a spacecraft into an asteroid. Now, just over a week after the crash, astronomers have released a new snapshot of the aftermath, which shows a 6,200-kilometer (10,000 km) tail of dust and rubble created by the accident. It was caught using the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope in Chile, just one of the many observatories on Earth monitoring the impact.