9621 Agnes Crossing, Lake Suzanneview, New Mexico Island 84604-9295.
Photo: John Hopkins APL/NASA NASA will try it this Monday deflect an asteroid’s orbit Crashing a kamikaze ship into it in a new test of “planetary defense” that
NASA will try it this Monday deflect an asteroid’s orbit Crashing a kamikaze ship into it in a new test of “planetary defense” that should better protect humanity from a potential future threat.
The target asteroid poses no danger.
“But the mission, called DART, will help determine our response if we detect an asteroid that threatens to hit Earth in the future,” NASA chief Bill Nelson said on Monday. Said.
The moment of impact, 11 million kilometers away from Earth, can be followed live on the NASA channel.
🛰️ This is just a planetary defense test. Today, our #DARTTask It’s set to crash into a non-hazardous asteroid to test drift technology if we discover a threat.
Impact: 19:14 ET (23:14 UTC). Watch our LIVE stream at 6 PM ET: https://t.co/VAfF5ZXcYB pic.twitter.com/czGqnYJIGJ
— NASA (@NASA) September 26, 2022
The craft, no larger than a car, took off from California in November. After ten months of travel, it should reach its destination at 23:14 GMT on Monday at over 20,000 km/h.
“We’re changing the motion of a natural celestial body in space, humanity has never done this before,” said Tom Statler, the mission’s chief scientist. He added, “Something from sci-fi books and Star Trek episodes from my childhood. And now it’s real.”
The target is actually a double asteroid: a large one, Didymos (780 meters in diameter) and its moon Dimorphos (160 meters in diameter), orbiting it. There is only one kilometer between the two.
Where the ship should hit is against the smaller Dimorphos. This asteroid is currently orbiting the larger one in 11 hours 55 minutes. What is sought is to shrink its orbit in about 10 minutes.
This change can be measured with telescopes on Earth by observing the change in brightness as the smaller asteroid passes in front of the larger one.
When will we know if it works or not? “I would be surprised if we had conclusive evidence in less than a few days, and I would be surprised if it took more than three weeks,” Statler said.
Meanwhile, on Monday, the spacecraft’s onboard camera, called DRACO, will take one image per second. These images will reach Earth with a delay of only about 45 seconds.
To hit such a small target, the spacecraft will be autonomously guided for the last four hours like a self-guided missile.
Will target Didymos before Dimorphos spawns.
The small asteroid, which has never been imaged before, will initially appear no larger than a pixel before filling the entire field of view after the explosion until radio silence occurs.
About 40 people in the control room of the Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland will be ready to intervene if needed.
Three minutes later, a shoebox-sized satellite called LICIACube, launched by DART a few days ago, will pass within 55 km of the asteroid to capture images of the collision that will be sent back to Earth in the weeks and months to come.
The event will also be observed by the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes, which should be able to detect a bright dust cloud.
All this should allow for a better understanding of the composition of Dimorfos, which represents a fairly common asteroid population, and thus measure the impact of this technique, called kinetic influence, on them.
Asteroids have puzzled scientists in the past.
In 2020, the American Osiris-Rex probe sank to the surface of the asteroid Bennu much deeper than expected.
The porosity of Dimorphos is currently unknown. “If the asteroid responds to the DART impact in a completely unexpected way, it may actually lead us to reconsider how generalizable the kinetic impact is to a technique,” Statler said.
None of the known asteroids threaten Earth for the next 100 years.
Nearly 30,000 asteroids of all sizes have been cataloged in its vicinity, which it calls near-Earth objects, meaning that its orbit intersects the Earth’s orbit.
According to the scientists, almost all of them, a kilometer or longer, have been seen. But they estimate they only know about 40% of asteroids that are 140 meters or longer and could destroy an entire region.
“Our most important job is to find the missing ones,” said Lindley Johnson, NASA’s planetary defense agent.
The earlier these are detected, the more time it takes for experts to determine the best way to defend against them.
But Johnson said the DART mission is a crucial first step. “It’s a very exciting time for space history and even human history (…).”
Tonight @POT an uncrewed spacecraft will crash into an asteroid. Deliberately.
Yes, you read that right. And no, this is not the subject of a movie.
most #DARTtask It’s the world’s first mission to test technology to defend Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards! pic.twitter.com/XCBtdsgVV0
– Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) September 26, 2022
Source: El Nacional
Alice Smith is a seasoned journalist and writer for Div Bracket. She has a keen sense of what’s important and is always on top of the latest trends. Alice provides in-depth coverage of the most talked-about news stories, delivering insightful and thought-provoking articles that keep her readers informed and engaged.
