Finally, nearly a year after launch, the DART mission spacecraft from NASA, finally collided with the asteroid Dimorphos on Monday night (26), while flying at 22,500 km / h. or Digital appearance live broadcast the collision; watch.
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Although the explosion of a ship looks like an accident, this time the act was intentional. The reason: special defense. NASA wanted to test Earth’s ability to deal with threats if one day a dangerous asteroid collided with Earth. More concrete data on the collision should come out in the coming weeks.
“In essence, DART represents an unprecedented success for planetary defense, but it is also a unified mission with real benefit to all of humanity,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “While NASA studies the cosmos and our home planet, we are also working to protect this home and this international collaboration has turned science fiction into science, demonstrating a way to protect the Earth.”
“We are changing the movement of a natural celestial body in space. Humanity has never done this before, “said Tom Statler, scientist on NASA’s DART program.” This is stuff from science fiction books and really bad ‘Star Trek’ episodes from when I was a kid, and now it’s real. “.
“The success of DART provides a significant addition to the essential toolbox we must have to protect Earth from the devastating impact of an asteroid,” said Lindley Johnson, NASA’s planetary defense officer. “This shows that we are no longer unable to prevent this type of natural disaster. Along with improved capabilities to accelerate the discovery of the remaining population of dangerous asteroids in our next planetary defense mission, the Near-Earth Object (NEO), a successor to DART could provide what we need to save the day.
Read more:
Understand NASA’s DART mission
Launched on November 24 of last year, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission aimed to reach a binary system composed of two asteroids: Didymos, with a diameter of 780 meters, and its “moon ”Dimorphos, almost five times smaller.
In about four years, the European Space Agency’s Hera project will carry out detailed surveys of Dimorphos and Didymos, with a particular focus on the crater left by the DART collision and an accurate measurement of Dimorphos’ mass.
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