Artist’s conception of the DART spacecraft approaching Didymos and Dimorphos.
(Photo: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben)
Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid hurtled into Earth.
The asteroid sent debris flying, which clouded the skies around the globe.
Artist’s conception of the DART spacecraft approaching Didymos and Dimorphos. (Photo: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben)
Tidal waves bombarded shorelines.
The age of the dinosaurs came to a devastating end in a massextinctionevent.
Could this happen again?
The last complete image of asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, by the DRACO imager on NASA’s DART mission, taken about 2 seconds before impact. (Photo:NASA/Johns Hopkins APL)
For the past seven years, NASA has poured $300 million dollars into a plan for planetary defense.
The agency constructed a special spacecraft that launched in November of 2021.
It set out to find Didymos, a large asteroid of the Apollo group.
The goal was to smash the craft into Didymos.
While initially aiming for Didymos, the craft took aim for a smaller asteroid orbiting it known as Dimorphos.
This sudden change occurred only an hour before impact.
As the craft approached the asteroid, NASA also lost steering control.
However, the impact was successful.
The last image returned to Earth was of the asteroid’s rocky surface two seconds before thecollision.
Dimorphos, which is only 525 feet across, is seven million miles from Earth.
NASA predicts the impact will shorten the orbital time of Dimorphus around Didymos by about ten minutes.
In the future, small orbital changes could be enough to miss Earth.
If successful in changing the asteroid’s orbit even slightly, the technique is revolutionary.
We’re moving an asteroid.
We are changing the motion of a natural celestial body in space.
Humanity has never done that before, Tom Statler, NASA’s DART program scientist,remarked.
It may also be critical to avoiding a dinosaur-reminiscent disaster.
He notes that such dangerous asteroids will not be a surprise.
Astronomers will have many years of notice, perhaps even hundreds, to prepare.
