NASA’s DART Mission Changed Orbit of Asteroid Didymos Around Sun

NASA's DART mission has delivered a deeper result than the original 2022 impact headline: the spacecraft did not just shorten Dimorphos' 12-hour orbit around Didymos by 33 minutes, it also changed the path of the entire binary asteroid system around the Sun. JPL reports that observations from October 2022 through July 2025 showed the system's roughly 770-day solar orbit shifted by about 0.15 seconds per circuit, corresponding to an average velocity change of about 11.7 microns per second. It is the first time a human-made object has measurably altered the solar orbit of a celestial body.

DART did more than shorten Dimorphos' orbit around Didymos - the mission measurably changed the motion of the entire binary asteroid system around the Sun.

Didymos was never a threat to Earth, but the experiment now stands as a stronger planetary-defense test. A small kinetic impact produced a measurable long-term change, and researchers now have better data for modeling how a hazardous asteroid might be deflected if one is found early enough.