The experiment inaugurates the era of humanity’s defense of the planet (Jim Watson/AFP)
The US space agency announcedNASA“She succeeded in transforming a path An asteroid is a historic test of humanity’s ability to prevent a celestial body from destroying life on Earth.
The agency’s president, Bill Nelson, said that the “double-dart asteroid test redirection test vehicle, which is the size of a refrigerator, deliberately collided with the asteroid Demorvos on September 26, and pushed it into a smaller and faster orbit around another larger asteroid called Didymos.”
“This is a defining moment in the defense of the planet, and a defining moment for humanity,” Nelson stressed, stressing that “NASA has proven that we are serious in defending the Earth.”
Nelson explained that the double asteroid reorientation test “shortened the orbital period from 11 hours 55 minutes to 11 hours and 23 minutes.” Demorphos needed 11 hours and 55 minutes to make a full circle around Didymus.
He added, “We considered that we had achieved a great success if the spacecraft was satisfied with reducing the orbital period by about ten minutes, but it reduced it by 32 minutes.”
Demorphos, which is about 160 meters in diameter, poses no threat to Earth.
“It’s like a movie script, but we’re not in Hollywood,” Nelson said. “This mission shows that NASA is trying to be prepared for whatever the universe might send us.”
And if its goal is modest compared to the scenarios of a number of science fiction films, such as “Armageddon”, this unprecedented test mission inaugurates the era of training how humanity will defend itself if life on Earth is threatened by an asteroid in the future.
To verify that the asteroid’s path was altered, the scientists needed to analyze data provided by telescopes on Earth. These telescopes observed a change in the asteroid’s flash as it passed in front of and behind the larger asteroid.
Immediately after the collision, the first images taken by telescopes on the ground and the nano-satellite in the craft showed a large cloud of dust around Demorphos stretching thousands of kilometers.
After that, the two telescopes revealed James Webb And Hubble, the two most powerful for observing space, detailed footage that shows especially the movement of material that separated from the asteroid.
The spacecraft traveled for ten months from the time it took off from California until it hit the asteroid.
To hit a target as small as Demorphos, the final stage of the flight was fully automated, turning the craft into something like a self-guided missile.
All of this will make it possible to better understand the composition of Demorphos, which represents a group of fairly common asteroids, and thus measure the exact impact that this technique called kinetic impact can have on them.
Images taken of Demimorphos prior to the impact showed that its surface was gray and rocky, and it was oval in shape.
Knowing these details is important in the event that humanity in the future has to hit a celestial body approaching Earth.
Europe’s Hera probe, scheduled to launch in 2024, will monitor Demorphos closely in 2026 to assess the consequences of the collision and calculate the asteroid’s mass for the first time.
So far, about 30,000 asteroids of all sizes have been observed near Earth (they are called near-Earth objects, meaning that their orbit intersects with the orbit of the planet humans). About 3,000 new species are found each year.
Very few of the billions of asteroids and comets in the Earth’s solar system are considered a threat to our planet, and none of them will be in the next 100 years.
According to scientists, almost all asteroids with a diameter of a kilometer or more have been observed. But they estimate they have detected only about 40 percent of asteroids measuring 140 meters or more, and these have the potential to devastate an entire region.
(AFP)