TOWARDS RECONSTRUCTING THE DIMORPHOS EJECTA PLUME BY MEANS OF NON- SPHERICAL DUST SIMULATIONS AND DART/LICIACUBE DATA

On the 26th of September 2022, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission [1] was the first space mission demonstrating the kinetic impactor method for planetary defence. ASI's Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube) [2] was the first to image it. To reconstruct the ejecta plume, we apply a 3D+t model - LIMARDE [3, 4] - constrained with laboratory observations [5], impact simulations and near- and far- field observations such the LICIACube [6] images and HST [7] dust observations, respectively. The main tasks that have been pursuing are the following: to compute the dust velocity distribution based on the physical properties (size, mass and shape) derived from the LICIACube observations; to reconstruct the dust distribution of the plume with its filaments, spikes and large aperture; to determine the contribution of the rotation of the dust in the optical thickness of the plume; to check what is the role of the fragmentation of the particles; to constrain the dust density and shape based on the dynamical properties of the ejected dust in the near-mid- and far- environment.