NASA's Asteroid-Smashing Space Debris Spotted By Hubble Telescope

New images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope show that the collision also sent 37 boulders -- ranging from one metre to seven metres across.

Last year, NASA's DART spacecraft slammed itself into a distant asteroid Dimorphos. Now, the Hubble Space Telescope has captured the resulting debris in stunning detail. DART intentionally impacted Dimorphos on September 26, 2022, slightly changing the trajectory of its orbit around the larger asteroid Didymos.

The astronomers have now used the Hubble telescope and discovered a swarm of boulders that were possibly shaken off the asteroid when NASA deliberately slammed the half-ton DART impactor spacecraft into Dimorphos at approximately 14,000 miles per hour, according to a NASA press release.

New images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope show that the collision also sent 37 boulders -- ranging from one metre (three feet) to seven metres (22 feet) across -- floating into the cosmos.