Images Show Large Chunk of Asteroid Missing After NASA Impact

There's a huge dent in it.

Busted Up

New photos appear to show exactly how big of a chunk NASA's asteroid battering ram took out of a space rock yesterday. Although the asteroid didn't pose a threat to Earth, the collision was part of the space agency's Double Asteroid Reduction Test (DART), a trial of tech that could potentially push a killer asteroid off course long before it endangered Earth.

Earlier today, the Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube), which accompanied DART to the impact site, released a set of photos on Twitter that show Dimorphos, an asteroid that was — until yesterday — vaguely egg-shaped. Now, there's a big ole' dent in the middle. Science!

Footage showed a large cloud of debris after NASA's spacecraft rammed into Dimorphos, and while the impact was successful, scientists aren't sure yet if they actually knocked the asteroid off its course.

Coming Soon

If the data shows that the impact was successful, though, the trial could provide an invaluable technique should Earth ever need to defend itself against an incoming asteroid.

However, it'll be months before scientists are able to definitively measure Dimorphos' new orbit, so we don't know yet whether the spacecraft that hit it did enough damage to alter its trajectory.

"Weeks and months of hard work are now starting for scientists and technicians involved in this mission, so stay tuned because we will have a lot to tell!" LICIACube said online.

NASA could really use a win right about now given everything that's gone wrong with its Artemis I mission to the Moon. And heck, humanity could also use some good news.

For both reasons, let's hope DART hit a home run.

More on off-world news: Our Entire Galaxy Is Rippling and the Reason Why is Wild