Tag Archives: Double Asteroid Redirection Test

Science

A Powerful Recoil Effect Magnified NASA’s Asteroid Deflection Experiment

Leave a comment

Composite image of the Didymos-Dimorphos system taken on November 30, showing its new ejecta tail.
Image: Magdalena Ridge Observatory/NM Tech

Scientists continue to pore over the results of NASA’s stunningly successful DART test to deflect a harmless asteroid. As the latest findings suggest, the recoil created by the blast of debris spewing out from Dimorphos after impact was significant, further boosting the spacecraft’s influence on the asteroid.

NASA’s fridge-sized spacecraft smashed into the 535-foot-long (163-meter) Dimorphos on September 26, shortening its orbit around its larger partner, Didymos, by a whopping 33 minutes. That equates to several dozen feet, demonstrating the feasibility of using kinetic impactors as a means to deflect threatening asteroids.

A stunning side-effect of the test were the gigantic and complex plumes that emanated from the asteroid after impact. The Didymos-Dimorphos system, located 7 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth, even sprouted a long tail in the wake of the experiment. DART, short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, had a profound impact on Dimorphos, kicking up a surprising amount of debris, or “ejecta,” in the parlance of planetary scientists.

Animated image showing changes to the Didymos-Dimorphos system in the first month following DART’s impact.
Gif: University of Canterbury Ōtehīwai Mt. John Observatory/UCNZ

Dimorphos, as we learned, is a rubble pile asteroid, as opposed to it being a dense, tightly packed rocky body. This undoubtedly contributed to the excessive amount of ejected debris, but scientists weren’t entirely sure how much debris the asteroid shed as a result of the impact. Preliminary findings presented on Thursday at the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting in Chicago are casting new light on this and other aspects of the DART mission.

G/O Media may get a commission

Not only did DART kick up tons of ejecta, it also triggered a recoil effect that further served to nudge the asteroid in the desired direction, as Andy Rivkin, DART investigation team lead, explained at the meeting. “We got a lot of bang for the buck,” he told BBC News.

Indeed, had Dimorphos been a more compact body, the same level of recoil likely wouldn’t have happened. “If you blast material off the target then you have a recoil force,” explained DART mission scientist Andy Cheng from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, who also spoke at the meeting. The resulting recoil is analogous to letting go of a balloon; as the air rushes out, it pushes the balloon in the opposite direction. In the case of Dimorphos, the stream of ejecta served as the air coming out of the balloon, which likewise pushed the asteroid in the opposite direction.

Planetary scientists are starting to get a sense as to how much debris got displaced. DART, traveling at 14,000 miles per hour (22,500 km/hour), struck with enough force to spill over 2 million pounds of material into the void. That’s enough to fill around six or seven rail cars, NASA said in a statement. That estimate might actually be on the low side, and the true figure could possibly be 10 times higher, Rivkin said at the meeting.

The scientists assigned DART’s momentum factor, known as “beta,” a value of 3.6, meaning that the momentum transferred into Dimorphos was 3.6 times greater than an impact event that produced no ejecta plume. “The result of that recoil force is that you put more momentum into the target, and you end up with a bigger deflection,” Cheng told reporters. “If you’re trying to save the Earth, this makes a big difference.”

That’s a good point, as those values will dictate the parameters for an actual mission to deflect a legitimately dangerous asteroid. Cheng and his colleagues will now use these results to infer the beta values of other asteroids, a task that will require a deeper understanding of an object’s density, composition, porosity, and other parameters. The scientists are also hoping to figure out the degree to which DART’s initial hit moved the asteroid and how much of its movement happened on account of the recoil.

The speakers also produced another figure—the length of the tail, or ejecta plume, that formed in the wake of the impact. According to Rivkin, Dimorophos sprouted a tail measuring 18,600 miles (30,000 km) long.

“Impacting the asteroid was just the start,” Tom Statler, the program scientist for DART and a presenter at the meeting, said in the statement. “Now we use the observations to study what these bodies are made of and how they were formed—as well as how to defend our planet should there ever be an asteroid headed our way.”

Read original article here

Science

Telescope Spots Huge Debris Trail from NASA’s Asteroid Smash-Up

Leave a comment

Last week, NASA’s DART spacecraft intentionally crashed into Dimorphos, a petite moonlet orbiting the larger asteroid Didymos. Now, a telescope on the ground in Chile has imaged the massive plume created by the impact in the days following the encounter.

The crash was a planetary defense test; NASA is seeking to know if a kinetic impactor can change the trajectory of an Earth-bound space rock, should we ever spot a large one on a collision course with us. The space agency’s Center for Near Earth Objects exists to monitor the status of these objects and their orbits.

NASA is still sifting through the data of the collision to determine if the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, altered Dimorphos’s orbital trajectory around its larger companion, but images of the impact are coming thick and fast from all the telescopic lenses turned towards the historic event.

The latest images come from the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope in Chile, operated by NOIRLab. The SOAR telescope is located in the foothills of the Andes, an arid environment with clear, light-free skies that make the region ideal for ground-based telescopes.

The expanding dust trail from the collision is clearly visible, stretching to the right corner of the image. According to a NOIRLab release, the debris trail stretches about 6000 miles (10,000 kilometers) from the point of impact. Said Teddy Kareta, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory who was involved with the observation, in the release: “It is amazing how clearly we were able to capture the structure and extent of the aftermath in the days following the impact.”

NASA scientists have yet to come out with their determination on DART’s success, but the impact is a success in itself. Soon to come are further findings about the event: exactly how much material from Didymos was expelled, how pulverized the material was, and how fast it may have been kicked up. The data could shed important light on the effect that kinetic impactors might have on “rubble pile” asteroids, which Dimorphos appears to be. Rubble pile asteroids feature loosely bound conglomerations of surface material, which could explain these dramatic post-impact views of the moonlet.

Nearby in Chile, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s sky survey will soon begin. Among its charges are assessing potentially hazardous objects near Earth—though considering the recent test, perhaps the asteroids should be worried about us.

More: Ground Telescopes Capture Jaw-Dropping Views of DART Asteroid Impact

Read original article here

Science

How to Watch NASA’s DART Spacecraft Crash Into an Asteroid

Leave a comment

An artist’s depiction of the DART Spacecraft approaching the asteroid.
Illustration: NASA

The demise of DART is finally upon us, as the NASA spacecraft is on a collision course with the tiny Dimorphos asteroid. Here’s how you can watch this hugely important experiment to deflect an asteroid.

Short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, the DART mission is the first test of kinetic impactor technology as a means of deflecting asteroids that could be headed towards Earth. Although Didymos means no harm to our planet, the epic crash could one day protect our planet from an Earth-bound asteroid. A lot is resting on this astronomical encounter, and here’s how you can watch the action live.

The DART spacecraft is scheduled to impact its target asteroid on Monday at 7:14 p.m. ET. NASA will live stream the event at the space agency’s YouTube channel, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. Or you can stay right here and tune into the NASA broadcast through the feed below.

DART’s Impact with Asteroid Dimorphos (Official NASA Broadcast)

Live coverage of the mission will begin at 6 p.m. ET, and it will feature audio from NASA’s mission control, live commentary, as well as images beamed down by the spacecraft’s onboard high-resolution camera, DRACO (Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation).

Excitingly, NASA is also providing a silent live feed from DRACO that’s set to begin at 5 p.m. ET on NASA’s media channel. DRACO will keep rolling until it finally smashes into Dimorphos, relaying one image per second back to ground controllers on Earth. You can also tune in to the DRACO feed through the live stream below.

Watch a Live Feed from NASA’s DART Spacecraft on Approach to Asteroid Dimorphos

DART is careening towards the asteroid at speeds reaching 14,000 miles per hour (22,530 kilometers per hour). There may be a slight lag between these images and what’s happening in the control room as it takes about eight seconds for the images to appear on the screen after they’ve been received and processed by mission control, NASA officials told reporters during a press briefing on Thursday. So even if mission control declares “impact ” or “loss of signal,” it may take a few seconds to see that reflected in NASA’s coverage. And by “see it happen” we assume that’ll be the sudden appearance of a blank screen, signifying the destruction of the spacecraft.

G/O Media may get a commission

Alexa?
Has an 8″ HD touchscreen which can let you watch shows, stream things, or even make video calls thanks to the 13 MP camera, you can also use it to control other smart devices in your home with ease, and even display photos if you want to as a digital photo frame.

DART is NASA’s first planetary defense test mission. Its target is a tiny asteroid known as Dimorphos, a mini-moon that orbits a slightly larger asteroid called Didymos. The 1,376-pound DART probe is going to smash into Dimorphos in an attempt to alter its orbit around its larger counterpart. The purpose of the test is to experiment with kinetic impactor technology as a means of deflecting asteroids that could be headed towards Earth.

NASA keeps a close watch on 28,000 nearby asteroids. Although none of those asteroids currently pose a threat to Earth, we do need a plan in place should a massive space rock be headed towards our planet in the future. Didymos and its tiny companion Dimorphos pose no threat to Earth, and the test won’t cause the system to threaten our planet. The pair is roughly 7 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth.

NASA will use ground-based telescopes to monitor Dimorphos’s orbital trajectory after being smacked by the spacecraft, and to also measure the physical effects of the impact itself. At the scene, Europe’s LICIACube will monitor the event with its two onboard cameras, LUKE and LEIA. The Hubble Space Telescope, the Webb Space Telescope, and a camera onboard the Lucy spacecraft, will also attempt to monitor the event.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is planning a follow-up mission to the pair of space rocks; the space agency is scheduled to launch its Hera mission in 2024, which will rendezvous with Didymos by 2026 to study the impact crater left behind by DART, and any other changes made to the asteroid.

For now, DART’s POV will hopefully provide a breathtaking view of Dimorphos as it heads directly into the asteroid. It’ll be a sad end to the spacecraft, but data from the mission could eventually result in the tools needed to deflect a legitimately dangerous asteroid.

Additional reporting by George Dvorsky.

More: NASA’s DART Mission Is Going to Really Mess Up This Tiny Asteroid

Read original article here

Science

NASA’s DART Deploys Camera Probe Ahead of Asteroid Impact

Leave a comment

Depiction of DART (left) and LICIACube (right).
Image: Italian Space Agency

DART won’t survive its mission to deflect an asteroid, but the recently deployed LICIACube—a tiny probe equipped with cameras—will document the encounter in gory detail.

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is the space agency’s first demonstration of a defense strategy to protect against threatening asteroids. The 1,376-pound spacecraft is scheduled to smash into Dimorphos—the junior member of the Didymos binary asteroid system—on September 26 at 7:14 p.m. ET. Dimorphos poses no threat to Earth, but the experiment, should it work, will slightly nudge the moonlet from its current trajectory. In the future, a similar strategy could be used to deflect a genuinely threatening asteroid.

DART will not survive the encounter, but its onboard camera, called DRACO (Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation), will provide a first-person perspective of the collision. Nearby, LICIACube (pronounced LEE-cha-cube) will use its two onboard cameras to document the impact and its aftermath.

DART team engineers inspecting LICIACube before its installation into DART.
Photo: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman

Controllers issued a command on September 12 for DART to release the 31-pound (14-kilogram) LICIACube, which it had been carrying since its launch on November 24, 2021. A signal confirming the deployment arrived one hour later, much to the delight of Simone Pirrotta, LICIACube project manager for the Italian Space Agency.

“We are so excited for this—the first time an Italian team is operating its national spacecraft in deep space,” he said in a statement. “The whole team is fully involved in the activities, monitoring the satellite status and preparing the approaching phase to the asteroid’s flyby.”

LICIACube, short for Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging Asteroids, was designed and built by Argotec, an Italian aerospace company, with contributions from the National Institute of Astrophysics and the Universities of Bologna and Milan. The tiny probe—built from a 6-unit cubesat bus—is equipped with two optical cameras, named LUKE (LICIACube Unit Key Explorer) and LEIA (LICIACube Explorer Imaging for Asteroid). Together, LUKE and LEIA will collect data to confirm the success of the DART mission and to inform future models of similar tests done with kinetic impactors.

Pirrotta and his colleagues are currently calibrating LICIACube by capturing dynamic images of distant celestial bodies. The tiny probe will receive a series of maneuvering commands just prior to DART’s fatal rendezvous with the 520-foot-wide (160-meter) Dimorphos. NASA’s spacecraft, traveling at speeds reaching 15,000 miles per hour (24,000 kilometers per hour), will be annihilated by the impact. LICIACube will travel past the asteroid roughly three minutes after the encounter to confirm the impact, document the spread of the resulting dust plume, attempt to capture an image of the newly formed crater, and document the opposite side of Dimorphos, which DART will never see.

“We expect to receive the first full-frame images and to process them a couple of days after DART’s impact,” Pirrotta said. We’ll then use them to confirm impact and to add relevant information about the generated plume—the real precious value of our photos.”

By looking at the debris plume and impact crater, scientists hope to gain a better understanding of the asteroid’s structure and surface material. Observations of Dimorphos’s non-impacted hemisphere will improve estimates of the moonlet’s dimensions and volume.

NASA and ESA are planning to document the impact from afar. DART, should it be successful, will alter the speed of Dimorphos in its orbit around the 2,650-foot-wide (780-meter) Didymos “by a fraction of one percent, but this will change the orbital period of the moonlet by several minutes—enough to be observed and measured using telescopes on Earth,” according to NASA. Didymos is roughly 0.75 miles (1.2 km) from its larger companion.

Approximately 28,000 near-Earth asteroids have been documented over the years, with roughly 3,000 discoveries made each year. None of these known asteroids pose a risk to us within the next 100 years, but the chance exists that a threatening asteroid will suddenly come into view. The DART test, should it succeed, could equip us with a valuable strategy for mitigating these existential risks.

Related: NASA’s Upgraded Impact Monitoring System Could Prevent an Asteroid Apocalypse.

Read original article here

Science

How to Watch NASA Crash a Spaceship Into an Asteroid

Leave a comment

Photo: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman

In a first-of-its-kind mission, NASA is planning to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid on September 26 (Earth time), and you’ll be able to stream it live.

Humanity’s first experiment in diverting harmful asteroids from our planet, the mission called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, is meant to change the asteroid Dimorphos’ orbit by about 1%. Dimorphos is not on a collision course with Earth, but if the 520-foot space-rock were headed towards us, we’d be in bad shape, so NASA is using it as a test case for diverting a hypothetical future killer asteroid.

Where to watch NASA’s asteroid collision

The spacecraft-smashing-into-a-space-rock is happening about seven million miles from Earth, but NASA sent a camera-bearing craft out there to capture all the action. The space agency plans to stream the mission’s climax to the official NASA website, Facebook page, Twitter feed, and YouTube channel.

When will NASA’s craft crash into Dimophos?

The DART mission began nearly a year ago, and the climactic crash landing will happen on September 26 at 7:14 p.m. ET. The live coverage of the event begins at 6 p.m. ET.

G/O Media may get a commission

What’s the point of NASA crashing a ship into an asteroid, anyway?

Space rocks hurtle into Earth regularly, but most are burned up in the atmosphere, and most that land are too small to do major damage. But if a large enough asteroid were to hurtle toward us, it would be cataclysmic. The dinosaurs were likely wiped out by an asteroid that hit earth about 66 million years, so NASA is taking the first steps to preventing a similar catastrophe from befalling humans.

“We don’t want to be in a situation where an asteroid is headed toward Earth and then have to be testing this kind of capability. We want to know about both how the spacecraft works and what the reaction will be…before we ever get in a situation like that,” Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer for NASA, told USA Today in November.

No one is really sure whether the spacecraft’s momentum will be enough to divert the asteroid, but the scientific data NASA gathers might help in future killer-space-rock scenarios (even if it leads to the conclusion that there’s nothing we can do about it.)

How much should we worry about being killed by an asteroid?

Whether we should not worry at all about a space rock hitting earth or worry about it constantly depends on your point-of-view. There are over 27,000 near-Earth objects in our solar system. As far as we know, none of them pose a threat to our planet, but we also know that millions of meteorites bombard Earth every day, although most of them are too small to make it though the atmosphere without burning up. Eventually, our luck is going to run out, though. There’s no telling how long it will be until an extinction-level meteor hits Earth again—it could be in 18 million years, or it could be next month. So go ahead and have an extra piece of cake.

 



Read original article here

Science

NASA’s DART Mission Will Totally Deform Dimorphos Asteroid

Leave a comment

The DART mission will be the first to test asteroid deflection through kinetic impactor technology.
Illustration: NASA

In order to protect the Earth, some sacrifices must be made. NASA’s DART spacecraft is currently on its way to a binary asteroid system known as Didymos and will essentially crash into one tiny asteroid to test out a deflection method. But rather than leaving behind an impact crater as initially intended, the DART spacecraft may actually deform the mini-moon, making it nearly unrecognizable.

Using a new model, a group of researchers have simulated the entire cratering process and discovered that the asteroid deflection mission might completely alter its target, changing its appearance far more severely than previously believed. 

“The DART impact could globally deform Dimorphos, and therefore change its overall shape significantly, instead of creating just a small crater,” Martin Jutzi, co-author of the study, which was published in The Planetary Science Journal, told Gizmodo in an email.

This illustration shows the possible shapes that the asteroid might take following impact.
Illustration: Courtesy of Martin Jutzi

As seen in the above illustration, the mini-moon, dubbed Dimorphos (formerly known as Didymoon), could take on one of these six possible shapes following the spacecraft’s impact. The whole cratering process could take a few hours, which is why previous models of the impact did not predict the asteroid’s subsequent deformation. “Previous models were only able to simulate the first seconds of such events,” Jutzi said.

Short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, the DART mission launched in November 2021 towards the Didymos asteroid system. Didymos is an 800-meter wide rock with its own 170-meter wide moon known as Dimorphos, the main target of DART. The spacecraft will smash into the mini-moon at 15,000 miles per hour (24, 140 kilometers per hour), attempting to offset its orbit. The impact is scheduled for late September or early October, when the pair will come within 7 million miles (11 million kilometers) of Earth.

The purpose of the test is to experiment with kinetic impactor technology as a means of deflecting asteroids that could be headed towards Earth. NASA and other space agencies, keep a close watch on asteroids that come too close for comfort in order to assess whether or not they pose a threat to our planet. But as far as defending Earth from incoming asteroid impacts, there’s no clear cut plan on what to do.

“These weak asteroids could actually be deflected much more strongly and larger amounts of material could be ejected from the impact than the previous estimates predicted,” Jutzi said. “These larger effects should be easier to observe immediately after the DART impact.” So the DART mission will still be able to perform the experiment, just perhaps with a different outcome than initially anticipated.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is also planning a follow-up mission to the pair of space rocks. ESA is scheduled to launch its Hera mission in 2024, which will rendezvous with Didymos by 2026 to study the impact crater left behind by DART, and any other changes made to the asteroid. If Dimorphos has indeed taken on a different appearance, it may provide valuable data on the asteroid itself.

“Ideally, this will allow us to learn something about the asteroid’s interior, rather than just the surface,” Jutzi said. “This would in turn provide very valuable information about the asteroid’s bulk properties and improve our understanding of asteroids in general.”

More: The Spacecraft That’s Going to Smash Into an Asteroid Just Sent Back Its First Pictures

Read original article here

Science

China Hopes to Redirect a Nearby Asteroid Within the Next Four Years

Leave a comment

Artist’s impression of Dimorphos shortly after being struck by NASA’s DART spacecraft. China’s proposed kinetic impaction test would likely use a similar strategy.
Image: ESA

The global effort to protect Earth from dangerous asteroids is set to become stronger, as China has announced its intentions to test an asteroid redirect system as early as 2025.

Speaking to China Central Television on Sunday, Wu Yanhua, deputy head of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), described China’s preliminary plans to embark on the planetary defense project, according to Chinese state-owned news agency Global Times. Wu’s comments coincided with Space Day, an annual event that commemorates the 1970 launch of China’s first satellite, Dongfanghong-1, in 1970.

For the proposed test, Wu said a probe would closely survey a near-Earth object prior to smashing into it. Known as kinetic impaction, the idea is to alter the orbital trajectory of a threatening asteroid by directing a large, high-speed spacecraft into the object. NASA is currently running a similar test, known as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, which seeks to deliberately crash a space probe into Dimorphos—a tiny asteroid—later this year.

The Global Times says the CNSA project is in its infancy and is still being reviewed for approval. The Chinese space agency is targeting 2025 or 2026 to conduct the test, a timeline that coincides with the end of China’s 14th Five-year plan period, according to Wu.

In addition, Wu said the CNSA hopes to develop a ground-based monitoring and warning system to analyze and catalog potentially dangerous near-Earth objects. No further details were given, but the system will likely emulate NASA’s Sentry-II monitoring system, which autonomously evaluates asteroid impact risks. Software designed to simulate the risks posed by asteroids and tabletop exercises to rehearse the defense process are also planned, according to the Global Times, adding that China is “shouldering the responsibility as a major global power in safeguarding the Earth with other countries.” The proposed monitoring and warning system would precede the asteroid mitigation test, Wu said.

Having more eyes on the sky is a good thing. My hope is that CNSA, NASA, and other space agencies and astronomical groups will pool their resources to make sure no threatening asteroids are missed and to coordinate these efforts in meaningful ways. NASA says it’s currently tracking 28,000 near-Earth objects and that roughly 3,000 are being added to the list each year.

The proposed CNSA program and kinetic impaction test is welcome news and another sign of China’s ongoing ambitions in space and space exploration. The country’s space-based initiatives are advancing quickly, as evidenced by its robotic lunar and Martian missions and its nascent space station, which is being made available to foreign astronauts, including space tourists.

Read original article here

Science

What was that strange swirling light in the Ozarks sky on Monday night?

Leave a comment

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – ”Never seen anything like that!”

“Wow!”

“How cool is that?”

“But what is it?”

“I don’t know but it’s awesome!”

Those were just a few of the comments made by viewers who sent us cell phone videos of the strange swirling light in the sky on Monday evening that led to a lot of speculation.

But as it turns out it was not an alien invasion or the second coming.

It was the leftovers of a SpaceX launch at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

At 6:11 p.m. CDT the SpaceX rocket took off carrying an Italian Space Agency satellite that’s part of a fleet of spacecraft that will monitor shipping traffic, natural disasters and climate change.

The first stage of the rocket landed back on earth safely as it is designed to do and can be reused.

And as Dr. Greg Ojakangas, a retired Drury University professor who worked 25 years for NASA explained, the second stage remained in orbit for a while and eventually burned up in the atmosphere.

“Eventually it detaches and deorbits and when they have extra fuel left over they dump it producing a spiral pattern,” Ojakangas said. “So that’s what people saw. Basically the rocket went up, circled the earth almost one full time, ended up over the midwest and burned up its fuel on the way out.”

This is just the latest in more unusual sights we’re seeing in the night sky these days. It wasn’t that long ago people were wondering what those long string of lights floating across the sky were that seemed to be in perfect formation. It turned out those were Starlink satellites that are joining a growing number of objects in space.

“The Starlink satellites SpaceX is sending up, well there are going to be tens-of-thousands of them,” Ojakangas said. “China is sending up a constellation of satellites. We’re at the beginning of a really intense increase in the use of space and that’s a major environmental hazard.”

Ojakangas knows all about that because he specialized in space debris at NASA and is familiar with the danger of recent incidents where the International Space Station had to swerve in its orbit to dodge debris.

“Even a tiny piece of debris too small to even track will have the power of high explosives,” he pointed out.

And that’s one of the reasons why NASA recently launched a Double Asteroid Redirection Test known as the DART program where next September a probe is scheduled to crash into a pair of asteroids. It is part of an attempt to develop technology that would change the paths of dangerous objects on a collision course with earth.

“These sorts of missions may in fact save our species at some point in the future,” Ojakangas said.

To report a correction or typo, please email digitalnews@ky3.com

Copyright 2022 KY3. All rights reserved.

Read original article here

Science

NASA Is Going To Try To Re-Direct The Path Of An Asteroid

Leave a comment

Illustration: NASA

If you’re a fan, like I am, of not being crushed to death by a rock that falls from the sky, then you should be interested in the mission NASA launched today with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The spacecraft in the nose of that rocket is called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), and that spacecraft is going to smack right into the asteroid Dimorphos in hopes of redirecting its path.

Now, I’m happy to say this is being done not because Dimorphos is actually threatening to hit the Earth but because it makes for a good test subject. See, Dimorphos is part of a binary pair of asteroids and orbits around the asteroid Didymos, so NASA can tell if the impact of DART into Dimorphos affected its orbit around Didymos. It can then use that information to calculate how a similar strike to an asteroid potentially headed to Earth could be deflected.

The spacecraft is small and boxy, and it will hit Dimorphos at an impressive 14,760 mph, sped along by its NEXT xenon ion thruster engine, which converts solar energy into gradual but persistent thrust.

Illustration: NASA

G/O Media may get a commission

An onboard camera and autonomous navigation software will guide DART to its self-sacrifice into the asteroid, which will change the speed of the asteroid’s orbit around the main asteroid by a fraction of a percent. But that should affect the orbital period by several minutes, all of which will be confirmed by observations from Earth.

Illustration: Ted Lopez / Johns Hopkins APL

DART won’t arrive at the asteroid pair until next September or so, which means you have plenty of time to figure out how to get close if you want a ringside seat.

The ability to deflect an asteroid could one day prove to be absolutely crucial to the safety of everything living on Earth. While, so far, NASA does not predict an asteroid of significant size hitting Earth in the next century or so, there have been 1,200 meteor impacts to Earth from asteroids over three feet in length since 1988, and only 0.42 percent of those—five—were actually predicted in advance.

So, it’s not exactly like we have a really solid handle on this whole asteroid-prediction thing, and figuring out a way to be ready to deflect something would really be a great idea. Ideally, if this test works, a similar deflecting spacecraft will be made available and be ready to go, should the situation arise in the future.

Read original article here

Science

NASA to launch “Armageddon”-style mission to deliberately crash into an asteroid’s moon and test “planetary defense”

Leave a comment

NASA’s upcoming mission might resemble a scene from a sci-fi disaster movie. The agency announced Sunday that it’s sending spacecraft above the Earth to crash into an asteroid’s moonlet to change the body’s trajectory. 

The mission, a Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), will be the first agency’s use of the kinetic impactor technique, in which a large, high-speed spacecraft is sent into an asteroid’s path to change its motion. NASA is set to conduct the mission, what it calls “the first test for planetary defense,” on November 24, the day before Thanksgiving, to hit the binary near-Earth asteroid Didymos and its moonlet, Dimorphos. 

The asteroid is roughly 780 meters across — about 2,559 feet, according to NASA. Its moonlet is about 525 feet, which according to NASA, is “more typical of the size of asteroids that could pose the most likely significant threat to Earth.” 

The DART spacecraft will crash into the moonlet nearly head-on at about 6.6 kilometers per second, a speed that’s faster than a bullet and rapid enough to change the speed of the moonlet by a fraction of 1%, NASA says. Though it appears like a small change, this impact will change the orbital period of the moonlet by several minutes. 

DART will be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, but it’s not going to crash into the asteroid’s moon for another 10 months. NASA said that it will be cruising in space until September 2022, when the Didymos system is within 11 million kilometers of Earth. 

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. While the basic idea to the movie is similar, however, NASA has said that neither Didymos nor Dimorphos pose a threat to Earth. This particular mission, the agency says, is so that scientists can calculate how effective DART missions can be. 

The distance from Earth that the asteroid and its moonlet will be at the time of the collision is close enough that telescopes will be able to observe what happens. 

Li Cohen

Li Cohen is a social media producer and trending reporter for CBS News, focusing on social justice issues.



Read original article here

The Ultimate News Site