NASA spacecraft successfully crashes into asteroid
NASA successfully crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid Monday, in a demonstration of “the world’s first planetary defense technology.”
NASA created the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission to test whether it can use a human-made spacecraft to redirect an asteroid headed to Earth. DART’s mission control was located at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.
“This first-of-its-kind mission required incredible preparation and precision, and the team exceeded expectations on all counts,” said APL Director Ralph Semmel. “Beyond the truly exciting success of the technology demonstration, capabilities based on DART could one day be used to change the course of an asteroid to protect our planet and preserve life on Earth as we know it.”
“At its core, DART represents an unprecedented success for planetary defense, but it is also a mission of unity with a real benefit for all humanity,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “As NASA studies the cosmos and our home planet, we’re also working to protect that home, and this international collaboration turned science fiction into science fact, demonstrating one way to protect Earth.”
The spacecraft was launched last November. NASA used a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to send DART on its collision course with the asteroid Dimorphos. The spacecraft smashed into Dimorphos on Monday evening at 7:14 p.m. ET.
“DART’s success provides a significant addition to the essential toolbox we must have to protect Earth from a devastating impact by an asteroid,” said Lindley Johnson, NASA’s planetary defense officer. “This demonstrates we are no longer powerless to prevent this type of natural disaster.”
Experts say that it will be about two months before they can fully determine whether the hit was enough to successfully drive Dimorphos off its course. NASA noted that Dimorphos is not on course to hit Earth and does not pose a threat to our planet.
"We're embarking on a new era of humankind, an era in which we potentially have the capability to protect ourselves from something like a dangerous hazardous asteroid impact. What an amazing thing; we've never had that capability before," said Dr. Lori Glaze, the director of NASA's Science Mission Directorate's Planetary Science Division.
NASA to blast spacecraft traveling faster than a bullet into an asteroid to test 'planetary defense'
It sounds like a scene out of a sci-fi disaster movie, but NASA's upcoming Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission is real — and it aims to evaluate our chances of preventing a hazardous asteroid from striking planet Earth.
On Nov. 24, NASA will send a spacecraft above the Earth aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the intention of crashing it into an asteroid's moonlet to change the celestial body's trajectory.
"DART will be the first demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique, which involves sending one or more large, high-speed spacecraft into the path of an asteroid in space to change its motion," the agency announced on Sunday.
The spacecraft's target will be near-Earth asteroid Didymos and its moonlet, which according to NASA are about 2,559 feet and 525 feet across, respectively. The agency noted that the moonlet is "more typical of the size of asteroids that could pose the most likely significant threat to Earth."
If all goes as planned, the spacecraft will strike the moonlet head-on traveling at a speed of 6.6 kilometers per second, or faster than a bullet travels when fired from a gun.
The impact is expected to be significant enough to alter the moonlet's speed by a fraction of 1%, which doesn't sound like much but is actually enough to "change the orbital period of the moonlet by several minutes — enough to be observed and measured using telescopes on Earth."
Scientists will have to wait a while before witnessing the crash, however. After launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Nov. 24, the spacecraft will cruise for more than a year before intercepting the Didymos' moonlet in late September 2022 when the moonlet is close enough to Earth to enable observations.
CBS News reported that "the mission is reminiscent of the 1998 sci-fi action movie 'Armageddon,' in which the space agency deploys a team of civilians to land on an asteroid and detonate it before it destroys Earth."
But while the plot may be somewhat similar, it differs in one major way: NASA scientists note that neither Didymos nor its moonlet pose a threat to Earth. In fact, they don't anticipate such a risk in the next 100 years, the Washington Post reported.
Rather, the mission is for the purpose of testing how effective DART missions can be should one be needed later.
"We're going to make sure that a rock from space doesn't send us back to the Stone Age," Thomas Statler, a NASA scientist, said on the agency's podcast recently, the Post noted.
He added that although the collision isn't immediately stopping an Earth-shattering asteroid, it is a mission of "historical proportions" since it will mark "the first time that humanity has actually changed something in space."
"We've left footprints and tire tracks and things like that, but this will be the first time humanity has changed a celestial motion," Statler said.
NASA approved to test new technology that will PUNCH an asteroid headed toward Earth
It would be impressive if technology existed that could deflect an asteroid on a path toward Earth and save mankind from devastating impact. Well, NASA plans to test new technology that aims to do just that.
On Wednesday's show, Pat Gray and Jeff Fisher detailed how NASA has approved a project called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, the aim of which is to throw a "small" asteroid off course in October 2022.
Pat called the technology amazing and later added that it would be impressive if we have the capability to move an asteroid out of its flight path. Watch the clip for more from Pat.
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How 'Bout No | 1/18/22