Image copyright
NASA/Johns Hopkins APL
The DART spacecraft is on a mission to crash into Dimorphos.
For years, scientists have been preparing to face a threat that is far away for now, but could one day be real.
These are asteroids that pass “close” to Earth and that could To crash against the planet.
The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) makes it clear that “not known no asteroid posing a risk of impact on Earth in the next 100 years. “
So far, the most dangerous asteroid is 2009FD, which has less than a 0.2% chance of hitting Earth in the year. 2185.
- This is how NASA prepares for a possible impact of an asteroid on Earth
Experts, however, prefer to be cautious and be ready in case they ever have to face a real threat.
For this, NASA, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) prepare what will be their first mission to planetary defense, which will attempt to hit an asteroid to deflect its orbit.
The mission is called DART, which in English means dart and in this case they are the initials of Double Redirection Test Asteroid.
Image copyright
Getty
The DART mission is a test run of a planetary defense mission.
This historic mission is planned for sometime between July and September of 2022, and the target will be a newly named asteroid Dimorphos.
Dimorphos means “two forms”, since it would be the first cosmic object that change the shape of its orbit due to human intervention.
What will the operation be like and what makes Dimorphos a perfect guinea pig to try out this planetary defense technique?
Kinetic impact
The DART mission will be the first attempt of deflecting a space object using what experts call a “kinetic impact”.
The operation will consist of launching the DART spacecraft to travel through space and, deliberately, break up contra Dimorphos.
- The discovery of two “super Earths” in a planetary system close to the solar system
The idea is that the impact will make Dimorphos change his trajectory, like when two billiard balls collide.
“What we want to achieve is to change the velocity of the object by perhaps one centimeter per second,” explains astronomer Andy Rivkin, one of the mission leaders on the DART portal.
Image copyright
NASA
This illustration shows the Dimorphos-Didymos binary system, close to the DART spacecraft and the cubic satellite that plans to image the impact.
“That’s not much,” he says, but in the case of Earth, that would be enough to divert its course and avoid collision.
Among all the options that have been evaluated, NASA considers kinetic impact to be the method “simpler and more technologically mature”, to defend Earth from asteroids.
- What the message says that the astronomer Carl Sagan sent to the aliens (and why a scandal was created)
How is the DART ship
The dart that plans to hit Dimorphos is a low-cost craft that can travel 6.6 km per second.
It is equipped with solar panels which when deployed measure 8.5 meters long each.
Inside you will carry a camera that will help you navigate and identify your target, as well as choosing the best one point of impact.
The ship will also carry a cubic satellite It will detach a few days before the crash and will attempt to capture images of the moment of impact between DART and Dimorphos.
Image copyright
NASA/Johns Hopkins APL
The DART spacecraft will be equipped with solar panels and plans to travel 6.6 km per second.
Why Dimorphos is the ideal target
Dimorphos asteroid is part of a binary system, because it revolves around another asteroid called Didymos, which in Greek means Twins.
Dimorphos has a diameter of 160 meters and is smaller than Didymos, which has a diameter of 780 meters.
The DART spacecraft will hit Dimorphos almost head-on, shortening in several minutes the time it takes for this little asteroid to orbit Didymos.
The plan in 2022 is that after impact, telescopes from Earth can measure the variations in brightness of the binary system to measure how much Dimorphos’s orbit changed.
The idea of launching DART in the second semester of 2022 is that by that time the Didymos system will be closer to Earth, about 11 million kilometers, which will allow better observations.
Simply put, Dimorphos will be the perfect target to assess how effective it can be a ship like DART deviate one object from another.
Image copyright
NASA/Johns Hopkins APL
When DART collides with Dimorphos, telescopes from Earth will be able to observe the variation of the orbit with respect to Didymos.
Planetary defense
Planetary defense programs aim to protect Earth from the threat of nearby cosmic objects, known as NEO, for its acronym in English.
An asteroid is considered close to Earth when its orbit brings it about 50 million kilometers of our planet.
Although the vast majority of nearby objects entering Earth’s atmosphere disintegrate before reaching the surface, those objects that are greater than about 30 meters could cause damages if they go through the atmosphere.
According to NASA, an object is considered potentially dangerous if it orbits 7.5 million km from Earth and is over 140 km in diameter.
Image copyright
Getty
Experts clarify that the possibility of a dangerous meteorite impacting the Earth is very remote.
Every month, astronomers manage to detect several asteroids a few meters in diameter that pass between the Earth and the Moon.
Every day the Earth’s atmosphere is also hit by meteroids, which are small fragments of asteroids of about a meter, and which cause bright trails that can be seen at night.
According to NASA, on an average of every 10,000 years, there is a possibility that asteroids greater than 100 meters may impact Earth and cause local disasters or generate waves that flood coastal areas.
So for now there is nothing to worry about, but it is better to be prepared.
Remember that you can receive notifications from BBC News Mundo. Download the latest version of our app and activate them to not miss our best content.
–
