NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft successfully altered the orbit of an asteroid around the sun, marking the first time humans have deliberately changed a celestial body's solar orbit, scientists reported Friday in the journal Science Advances.

The DART spacecraft, launched in 2021, deliberately collided with the asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, 2022. Dimorphos, which measures 525 feet in diameter, orbits a larger asteroid called Didymos as the pair travels around the sun together. The mission was designed as a planetary defense exercise to test whether spacecraft impacts could deflect potentially hazardous asteroids.

Researchers confirmed the impact reduced the asteroids' orbital period around the sun by 0.15 seconds, shortening their 769-day solar orbit by approximately 720 meters. While these changes appear minimal, scientists say small deflections applied years in advance could make the difference between a dangerous asteroid hitting or missing Earth in the future.

The study found that debris ejected from Dimorphos during the collision provided as much momentum change as the spacecraft impact itself, effectively doubling the deflection effect. Previous estimates indicated the crash ejected approximately 35 million pounds of rock and dust from the asteroid's surface.

NASA had previously confirmed that the impact shortened Dimorphos's orbit around its larger companion asteroid Didymos. The new findings, based on observations from around the world, represent the first confirmation that the collision also affected the asteroid pair's path around the sun. Both asteroids posed no threat to Earth and were selected specifically because they would remain safely away from our planet.

The European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft is scheduled to reach the asteroid system in November to conduct detailed surveys of the impact site and its aftermath, providing additional data for future planetary defense missions.