A roughly 1,300-pound spacecraft slammed head-on into the asteroid. Within a few minutes, images showed a bright plume of debris, and the impact slowed Dimorphos' orbit by about a tenth of an inch per second.
The team observed the dust cloud morphing into different shapes and two comet-like tails, proving that a spacecraft, acting as a kinetic impactor, could successfully target and deflect an asteroid far from Earth.
Ron Ballouz noted that using kinetic impactors for planetary defense is not just a 'last-ditch-effort' seen in movies but a viable technique if hazardous objects are detected early enough to implement deflection strategies.
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