Do we have any plans to avoid that one day the trajectory of a dangerous asteroid coincides with our planet and collides with us? That’s how it is. DART is the first mission to deflect asteroids, our first active planetary defense techniques tool. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission starts its engines. The November 23 launch is just the beginning, as the spacecraft won’t reach its target, the Didymos binary system, until fall 2022.
DART will take off from the Vandenberg Space Force Base (in California) at 06.21 UTC, using a Falcon 9 rocket from Space X , as reported by NASA.
Planetary defense
The box-shaped spacecraft will hit the asteroid Dimorphos – which orbits a larger asteroid called Didymos – in September 2022 while traveling at a speed of approximately 15,000 miles per hour. When it hits Dimorphos, the space probe will change the speed of the space rock by a fraction of 1%. The probe, which will be destroyed on impact, will transfer its kinetic energy to the smaller asteroid, bringing it closer to its companion. If it works, Dimorphos will orbit Didymos at least 73 seconds faster than before.
The asteroid’s response to the impact will help NASA determine how large future probes should be to move their targets.
“Although there is no known asteroid currently on the course of impact with Earth, we do know that there is a large population of near-Earth asteroids ,” said Lindley Johnson, NASA Planetary Defense Officer.
Didymos is a binary asteroid system, which means it has two bodies. The largest is shaped like a spinning top and measures around 780 meters in diameter, while the smallest, Dimorphos, measures around 160 meters in diameter, according to NASA.
And although Dimorphos does not pose a danger to Earth, NASA does intend to measure the altered orbit of the asteroid caused by the collision for future missions that could one day save Earth from the fatal impact of an asteroid. It is better to be prepared. As NASA says, “Planetary defense is finding asteroids before they find us.”
Why choose precisely this binary asteroid system?
Didymos is a near-Earth object (NEO), which means that it approaches Earth within 1.3 astronomical units (194.5 million kilometers). This target was selected because the impact of the spacecraft on Dimorphos is expected to shift the moon’s orbit into a slightly different path around the larger body. Precisely because it is not considered a threat to our planet (and it will not be after the impact, approximately between September 1 and October 1 of next year) and because both are ideal candidates for the test due to the ability to observe them. with ground-based telescopes, they were selected for this purpose.
More than 27,000 near-Earth asteroids have been cataloged , but none currently pose a danger to our planet.
If you want to see the launch live, NASA broadcasts the entire event from its YouTube channel from 05.30 UTC as well as the pre-launch programming as well as the scientific briefings related to the mission.
