space
Historic success in space: Nasa deflects asteroid
The image taken by the James Webb telescope shows the asteroid Dimorphos in late September, four hours following the probe’s impact.
NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI/dpa
A vending machine crashing into a football stadium: This is how you can imagine the NASA mission “Dart”, which was intended to change the movement of an asteroid. Now there are first findings.
Great success for the US space agency Nasa: The collision with a probe has changed the direction of movement of an asteroid for the first time. About two weeks following the impact, analyzes showed that the orbit of the celestial body around another asteroid was different than before, NASA said. The time for an orbit before the dart probe hit was 11:55 hours – now, on the other hand, a time of 11:23 hours was measured. A change of 73 seconds had previously been set as the minimum target.
At a speed of around 6.6 kilometers per second, the cube-shaped Dart probe the size of a vending machine crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos, which is regarding the size of a football stadium, at the end of September. From the approximately $ 330 million asteroid defense mission, NASA hopes to find out how the earth might be protected from approaching celestial bodies. However, Dimorphos posed no threat to humanity.
Nasa: Take the defense of the planet seriously
This mission shows that Nasa is trying to be prepared for whatever the universe throws at us. NASA has proven we take defending the planet seriously, said space agency chief Bill Nelson. He called the mission’s success a turning point in protecting humanity from an asteroid impact. In the coming weeks and months, the impact of the collision will now be further investigated. In 2024, the Hera mission of the European Space Agency Esa is to start for even more detailed research.
Dart has provided intriguing data on both the properties of asteroids and the effectiveness of an impact in defending Earth, said mission director Nancy Chabot. The Dart team continues to work on this rich dataset to fully understand this first planetary defense test of asteroid deflection.
NASA and researchers around the world have been dealing with the question of how to defend once morest an asteroid for many years. An asteroid impact around 66 million years ago, for example, is considered by scientists to be the leading theory as to why the dinosaurs became extinct. Scientists don’t currently know of any asteroid that might be heading straight for Earth any time soon – but researchers have identified around 27,000 asteroids near our planet, around 10,000 of them with a diameter of more than 140 meters.
