This is the dangerous asteroid that NASA launched its DART mission on

Source: BBC | Editor: Arif Budianto

KONTAN.CO.ID – This is the dangerous asteroid that is the target of NASA’s DART mission. DART spaceship will crash into an asteroid object called Dimorphos to change the direction of its orbit.

Soon NASA will send a spacecraft on a mission called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test). In this mission, the DART spacecraft will crash into a dangerous asteroid that threatens planet Earth.

Why did the DART spacecraft have to hit this Earth-threatening asteroid? The plane was indeed launched to change the direction of the orbit of an asteroid called Dimorphos by crashing into it.

Thus, this threatening asteroid could have a new orbit.

“DART will only change the orbital period of Dimorphos by a small amount. And that’s all that would be needed if the asteroid was discovered much earlier,” said Kelly Fast of NASA’s Office of Planetary Land Coordination. BBC.

Quoted from CNET, NASA’s mission will launch this DART spacecraft on November 23, 2021 local time.

What kind of asteroid is the target of this DART mission? Are these asteroids dangerous to our planet?

Also Read: Here’s a giant asteroid as tall as the Burj Khalifa, passing Earth next month

Asteroids targeted by the DART mission

Quote from BBCThe targets of this DART mission are a pair of asteroids orbiting each other in close orbit, known as a binary.

The larger one is called Didymos, measuring about 780m, while its smaller companion is called Dimorphos, about 160m wide.

Dimorphos is a small asteroid that was discovered in 2003.

An object the size of a Dimorphos can explode with many times the energy of a regular nuclear bomb, destroying populated areas and causing tens of thousands of casualties. Asteroids with a diameter of 300m and larger can cause devastation across a continent, while those larger than 1km will have a worldwide effect.

With the launch of DART, the craft will first escape Earth’s gravity, following its own orbit around the sun. Then the spacecraft will intercept the binary as it approaches within 6.7 million miles of Earth in September 2022 BBC.

The DART will hit the Dimorphos “moonlet” at about 15,000 mph (6.6 km/s). That speed is enough to change the object’s speed by a fraction of a millimeter per second, which could change its orbit around Didymos.

This is a very small shift, but enough to prevent the object from hitting a collision course with Earth.

The launch of the DART spacecraft can be watched on NASA’s official YouTube channel and will be broadcast live live streaming.