NASA plane prevents asteroid Doomsday from producing 10 million kilograms of space junk

JAKARTA – DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), a strategy to prevent an asteroid apocalypse that was carried out by NASA some time ago turned out to produce ten million kilograms of space debris. DART which flew on September 27, 2022 successfully crashed into the twin asteroid Dimorphos which is expected to hit the Earth.

To avoid the collision, NASA therefore created a special mission called Hera. In that mission there is a special plane called DART that will crash into an asteroid I dimorph . It is hoped that since the collision Dimorphos and its twin brother Didymos will change their trajectory and no longer have the potential to crash to earth.

The effort, which was carried out on September 27, 2022, lived up to expectations. Recently at the American Geophysical Unions event in Chicago, scientists and astronauts from the United States of America announced new facts from the DART mission.

The collision caused by DART is known to have caused Dimorphos to lose one million kilograms of material. The waste material actually breaks down and creates ten million kilograms of space debris. According to Republic World, Dimorphos has 5 billion kilograms of material.

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Dr Andy Rivkin, head of the DART investigation team at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU-APL), told BBC News that one million kilograms of the material was a huge amount. Also, it can produce 10 million space junk.

“It weighs like seven railroad cars loaded with rocks,” said Dr. Andy Rivkin.

At the same spot the material that was dropped actually helped the DART aircraft change the path of Dimorphos. The resulting material reinforced the momentum DART gave to Dimorphos.

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Dr Andy Cheng of JHU-APL said that the force generated by the collision actually increased the deflection made by Dimorphos. “If you’re trying to save the planet, then this strategy makes a big difference,” he explained.

The BBC said DART was moving at a speed of 22,000 kilometers per hour when it struck Dimorphos. The aircraft, 160 meters wide, immediately crashed into it and created a huge reverse force for Dimorphos.

“DART has been a huge success. Of course, a successful mission doesn’t guarantee that Earth is automatically safe from anything that might encounter us. But DART is certainly a big step toward our goal of making asteroid impacts on Earth preventable. ” explained Dr. Tom Statler, NASA DART program scientist.

(wsb)