00:03Back in September 2022, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirect Test, or DART mission for short, did the incredible.
00:10It traveled millions of miles through space and deliberately crashed into the Dimorphous asteroid,
00:15all in an attempt to change its rotational speed.
00:17The mission was a resounding success, slowing the orbital period of the cosmic traveler by 33 minutes per day.
00:23That's despite the DART spacecraft weighing only around 1,300 pounds and Dimorphous weighing around 11 billion pounds.
00:31Since then, astronomers have been running simulations, attempting to divine what other changes may occur.
00:36And they've just found something rather spectacular.
00:38Aside from the shift in speed, the DART spacecraft also caused considerable damage to Dimorphous.
00:44However, now experts say the asteroid could be healing.
00:47Asteroids can vary greatly with density, some being like chunks of planets,
00:51while others are essentially collected piles of rubble, held together by its own gravity.
00:56The Didymus and Dimorphous asteroid pair is the latter.
00:59And after the DART spacecraft slammed into it and ejected material out into space in a cone-like shape,
01:04the simulations reveal that material might now be recollecting, effectively healing the asteroid.
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