Dimorphos is a natural satellite of didymos made of same material as didymos

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Dimorphos is a natural satellite or moon of the near-Earth asteroid 65803 Didymos. The two asteroids form a binary system. 

The fact that the spectral signature is identical between Didymos and Dimorphos strongly suggests that they originated as one body. Over time, the fast-spinning asteroid spun material out into orbit, which then collected together to form the tiny moon called Dimorphos. 

The NASA’s DART mission revealed how battered asteroid Dimorphos formed. The test was a brilliant success, and it also revealed how the battered asteroid came to be: Dimorphos didn’t form on its own but rather as a ring of material flung off from its larger parent, Didymos. 

The parent body may have spun up too quickly or could have lost material after a glancing collision with another object, among other scenarios.

A study conducted in the wake of the DART impact found that Dimorphos is made from the same material as Didymos, and that the pair of asteroids likely originated from a single body. The DART impact blasted a significant cloud of debris away from Dimorphos

The separation between the centers of the two asteroids is 1.2 kilometers (0.74 miles). Dimorphos orbits Didymos at a distance of 1200 meters

Dimorphos has an orbital period of 11.9 hours. Its orbit period is synchronous with its rotation, so that the same side of Dimorphos always faces Didymos. 

The DART investigation team confirmed the spacecraft’s Sept. 26, 2022, impact altered Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos by 32 minutes, shortening the 11-hour and 55-minute orbit to 11 hours and 23 minutes.

Joe Montani of the Spacewatch Project at the University of Arizona discovered Didymos in 1996. Petr Pravec and colleagues at the Ondřejov Observatory in the Czech Republic discovered Dimorphos in 2003. 

Montani also suggested the name Didymos, which means “twin” in Greek. The asteroid was named Didymos because of its binary nature. 

Swift, a high school teacher in California, and his students were the first to detect deviations in Dimorphos’s orbit after the collision. They used their 2.3-foot-long telescope to study the asteroid.

The name Dimorphos comes from the Greek word Δίμορφος, which means “having two forms“. Planetary scientist and DART team member Kleomenis Tsiganis said that the name reflects the fact that Dimorphos was the first celestial body to have its orbit significantly changed by humanity. 

The word dimorphous means “existing in two forms”, especially of crystals. For example, metacinnabarite is a cubic form of mercuric sulphide, and lead monoxide is dimorphous.

The formal designation for Dimorphos is (65803) Didymos I. Its provisional designation is S/2003 (65803) 1. 

Dimorphos is a small moonlet that orbits a larger asteroid called Didymos. The two asteroids form a binary asteroid system. Dimorphos is 530 feet (160 meters) in diameter, while Didymos is 2,560 feet (780 meters) across. 

Yes, the Didymos-Dimorphos system is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, 11 million km (6.8 million mi) from Earth. The DART mission’s primary goal was to change the orbital period of Dimorphos, the time it takes the moon to orbit Didymos. The test succeeded in knocking Dimorphos slightly off course.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft impacted the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos on September 26, 2022 at 23:14 UTC.  The impact occurred at 7:14 p.m. EDT (2314 GMT).  The DART spacecraft hit Dimorphos at 14,000 miles per hour. 

The DART mission was the first-ever mission dedicated to investigating and demonstrating one method of asteroid deflection by changing an asteroid’s motion in space through kinetic impact. The two asteroids are not a threat to Earth, but because they do pass relatively close to Earth, they were chosen as the target for the mission

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