Researchers have just discovered that when NASA blasted an asteroid moon two years ago, it resulted in significant alterations to its shape and potentially set it on a new trajectory.

In 2022, NASA conducted the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, targeting the asteroid moon Dimorphos. The mission, designed as a planetary defense experiment, aimed to test whether a spacecraft could alter the course of an asteroid by colliding with it.

Dimorphos, a small moon orbiting the larger asteroid Didymos, was chosen as the target.

The impact did more than just change Dimorphos’s course, according to a professor of astronomy at the University of Maryland and a lead researcher on the DART mission, Derek Richardson.

“One of the biggest surprises was how much the shape of Dimorphos changed as a result of the DART mission,” Mr. Richardson said in a university release. “This result contradicts that idea and indicates that something more complex is at work here. Furthermore, the impact-induced change in Dimorphos’ shape likely changed how it interacts with Didymos.”

Before the collision, Dimorphos had a hamburger-like shape, but the impact stretched it into a football shape. The unexpected change in shape challenges existing scientific theories about the formation of asteroid moons.

Scientists previously believed these moons would naturally elongate over time, always orienting their long axis toward their parent asteroid. The DART mission’s findings, however, show that Dimorphos transitioned from a squished to a stretched form due to the impact.