The next step is to study the asteroid using telescopes on Earth to confirm that DART’s impact altered the its orbit around a larger asteroid called Didymos. NASA administrator Bill Nelson called the mission an “unprecedented success for planetary defense.” Researchers believe the crash could have shortened Dimorphos’s orbit by around 10 minutes, which is enough to make a significant difference to the path an asteroid travels. While Dimorphos itself had not been on course to crash into Earth, the project demonstrates NASA’s ability to deflect similar asteroids in the future. The mission, which was launched in November last year, demonstrates a way for humanity to protect itself from asteroids. And for a sense of scale, last year the collision was described by Tom Statler, DART’s program scientist, as a golf cart traveling at 15,000 miles an hour smashing into the side of a football stadium. NASAs Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission will change the trajectory of the Dimorphos asteroid by sending a spacecraft to collide with it on Monday, Sept. You can watch the livestream for yourself to see the exact moment DART struck Dimorphos. The strike was “basically a bull’s-eye,” mission systems engineer Elena Adams said. 26, 2022 altering the orbit of the asteroid. The team cheered as Dimorphos grew closer and closer, before the livestream cut out on impact with the asteroid. Since NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully impacted its target on Sept. A small camera mounted on DART livestreamed the spacecraft’s steady progress toward the 160-meter-wide asteroid, located about 6.8 million miles from Earth, back to controllers based at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |