The US space agency “NASA” announced that it has succeeded in diverting an asteroid, in 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 “Dual Asteroid Redirection Test” (DART), 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.
Nelson stressed that: “This is a decisive moment in the defense of the planet and a decisive moment for humanity,” stressing that NASA “has proven that we are serious in our defense of 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 would have considered that we had achieved a great success if the spacecraft was satisfied with reducing the orbital period by regarding ten minutes, but it reduced it by 32 minutes.”
Demorphos, which is regarding 160 meters in diameter, poses no threat to Earth. Nelson went on to say, “This is like a movie scenario, but we’re not in Hollywood (…) This mission shows that NASA is trying to be ready for anything the universe might send us.”
If its goal is modest compared to the scenarios of a number of science fiction films such as “Armageden”, 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.
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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 when it passed in front of and behind the larger asteroid.
Immediately following 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 most powerful telescopes, James Webb and Hubble, for observing space, revealed detailed footage, especially showing the movement of material that separated from the asteroid. The spacecraft has traveled for ten months since it took off from California and 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 is forced in the future to hit a celestial body approaching the Earth.
The European Hera probe, scheduled for launch in 2024, will closely monitor Dimorphos in 2026; To evaluate the consequences of the collision, the mass of the asteroid was calculated for the first time. So far, regarding 30,000 asteroids of all sizes have been observed near Earth (called near-Earth objects, meaning that their orbit intersects with the orbit of the planet humans), and regarding three thousand new species are found every 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, all asteroids with a diameter of a kilometer or more have been observed almost completely. But they estimate they’ve only spotted regarding 40 percent of asteroids that are 140 meters or more in size, and these have the potential to devastate an entire region.
