Regarding the «DART mission having been declared a resounding success».
Briefings, emotional interviews, impressive photos, PR-type publications - all this can be important for discussions and conclusions in politics, but not in science. Before the appearance of publications in peer-reviewed journals with detailed data and analysis of the collision consequences for Dimorphos`s orbit, there is nothing to discuss seriously and essentially.
The following must also be taken into account. One million kilograms of ejected fragments is only less than one percent of the total mass of the target. Since the ejection was "fan-shaped", its effect was most likely extremely insignificant, as well as the impact itself. This follows from the existence of an unavoidable completely inelastic reaction for impulse transmission to Dimorphos, which is a loose pile of rubble, stones and dust, but not a monolithic rock.
Finally, during photometric observations, nature can played a «cruel joke» with observers who used the mutual eclipses of Didymos and Dimorphos to determine of its orbit changes. The matter is that an asymmetric (one-side) and optically dense ejection of large asteroid fragments could partially remain in the orbit around the Dimorphos for a long time. With a small value of its first cosmic velocity around of 4 cm/s, this is quite probable and is confirmed by well known video animation - after 50th second (compressed in 500 times):
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfqVqOl9S9w
In turn, this could lead to optical-geometric distortions in the measurements of the difference between the moments of mutual eclipses due to the displacement of the photometric center with respect to the center of gravity. Using only different types of eclipses, occurring after 6 hours, lead to distortions of around 30 minutes, which could be interpreted as a real change in orbital period. Since large fragments were most likely ejected into different orbits around Dimorphos, the asymmetry of the ejection may disappear after some time. In this case, measurements of the orbital period owing to observations of any eclipses will show that it remained unchanged after the impact.
Briefings, emotional interviews, impressive photos, PR-type publications - all this can be important for discussions and conclusions in politics, but not in science. Before the appearance of publications in peer-reviewed journals with detailed data and analysis of the collision consequences for Dimorphos`s orbit, there is nothing to discuss seriously and essentially.
The following must also be taken into account. One million kilograms of ejected fragments is only less than one percent of the total mass of the target. Since the ejection was "fan-shaped", its effect was most likely extremely insignificant, as well as the impact itself. This follows from the existence of an unavoidable completely inelastic reaction for impulse transmission to Dimorphos, which is a loose pile of rubble, stones and dust, but not a monolithic rock.
Finally, during photometric observations, nature can played a «cruel joke» with observers who used the mutual eclipses of Didymos and Dimorphos to determine of its orbit changes. The matter is that an asymmetric (one-side) and optically dense ejection of large asteroid fragments could partially remain in the orbit around the Dimorphos for a long time. With a small value of its first cosmic velocity around of 4 cm/s, this is quite probable and is confirmed by well known video animation - after 50th second (compressed in 500 times):
In turn, this could lead to optical-geometric distortions in the measurements of the difference between the moments of mutual eclipses due to the displacement of the photometric center with respect to the center of gravity. Using only different types of eclipses, occurring after 6 hours, lead to distortions of around 30 minutes, which could be interpreted as a real change in orbital period. Since large fragments were most likely ejected into different orbits around Dimorphos, the asymmetry of the ejection may disappear after some time. In this case, measurements of the orbital period owing to observations of any eclipses will show that it remained unchanged after the impact.