Smacked Asteroid’s Debris Trail More Than 6,000 Miles Long

A plume of dust and debris blasted from the surface of the asteroid Dimorphos by NASA's DART spacecraft after it impacted on Sept. 26, 2022, captured by the U.S. National Science Foundation's NOIRLab's SOAR telescope in Chile. Teddy Kareta, Matthew Knight/NOIRLab via AP

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—The asteroid that got smacked by a NASA spacecraft is now being trailed by thousands of miles of debris from the impact.

Astronomers captured the scene millions of miles away with a telescope in Chile. Their remarkable observation two days after last month’s planetary defense test was recently released by a National Science Foundation lab in Arizona.