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NASA's DART Spacecraft Successfully Changes Orbit of Asteroid By Charlotte Olson Launched on November 24, 2021, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) smashed into asteroid Dimorphos on September 26 of this year, successfully knocking the asteroid off-course. Video from Italian Space Agencys’ LICIACube located on DART showed the spacecraft getting closer and closer to the asteroid until the screen went black, meaning DART had crashed into Dimorphos. Until October 11, NASA wasn’t sure if the DART mission had worked or not. The Planetary Defense Coordination Office at NASA was created to detect and successfully deal with potentially hazardous, near-earth objects, such as asteroids. DART’s mission was the first of its kind, a test to explore “one method of asteroid deflection by changing an asteroid’s motion in space through kinetic impact,” according to NASA. The 500-foot wide asteroid, Dimorphos, orbited a larger asteroid, Didymos, every 11 hours and 55 minutes. The refrigerator-sized spacecraft, DART, crashed into Dimorphos, pushing it a little closer to Didymos, and speeding up the orbit time by 32 minutes. “Nasa had defined a minimum successful period change of Dimorphos of 73 seconds or more,” says the BBC. “The results released on Tuesday show Dart surpassed this benchmark by more than 25 times.” Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, interviewed by the New York Times, noted, “If an Earth-threatening asteroid was discovered and we could see it far enough away, this technique could be used to deflect it.” Asteroids or other potentially hazardous near-earth objects would have to be detected very early in advance. DART was in space for 306 days before colliding with Dimorphos. In an interview with NPR, Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA remarked, “now that the test has proved successful, if an asteroid one day threatens Earth, scientists should get to work years ahead of time.” NASA will continue to observe Dimorphos and Didymos for the next couple of months, but DART’s initial test has proven that with enough time in advance, NASA could protect the Earth from a potential asteroid strike. "This mission shows that NASA is trying to be ready for whatever the Universe throws at us," concluded Nelson. Sources: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63221577 https://www.npr.org/2022/10/11/1128132956/nasa-dart-success-asteroid-dimorphos https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/11/science/nasa-dart-asteroid-spacecraft.html https://www.nasa.gov/specials/pdco/index.html https://dart.jhuapl.edu/News-and-Resources/files/Fact-Sheet-DART.pdf https://dart.jhuapl.edu/Mission/Impactor-Spacecraft.php |