Many films have shown a brave group of astronauts venturing into space on a life-or-death mission—their usual adversary: asteroids.
Deep Impact and Armageddon are two examples of such flicks. In the movies, the heroes evade a collision with the Earth by detonating and destroying the asteroid with a nuclear bomb.
However, contrary to common belief, scientists do not believe it is possible to totally shred a massive quantity of rock flying towards space at a thousand kilometers per second or more.
Instead, scientists believe that a safer and gentler method to handle a fragment of space rock is to nudge it off course using a tiny spaceship simply.
And NASA accomplished exactly that this week when one of its spacecraft crashed with an asteroid. Before the asteroid smashed the equipment, the photographs were captured and forwarded to headquarters. Then, NASA’s spacecraft made contact with the asteroid Dimorphos.
According to the crew, the strategy was effective, and the result of moving the asteroid off its path will be known in a matter of months.
Elena Adams, the mission’s systems engineer, stated that the group who overlooked the incident was filled with horror and delight when the vessel ultimately slammed with Dimorphos.
The mission is part of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which began seven years ago.
In November of last year, the $300 million effort put the spacecraft into orbit in the hopes of completing a move determining humanity’s potential for planetary defense against space debris heading for a collision with our planet.
Scientists predicted that the team would not get the desired outcomes for two months. The mission is successful if the asteroid is blasted off orbit. NASA will have to devise a new approach if it follows the same course.
“This really is about asteroid deflection, not disruption. This isn’t going to blow up the asteroid,” said Nancy Chabot, DART’s coordination lead.
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Altering Dimorphos’s orbit
Dimorphos is 7 million kilometers distant from Earth and hence presents no danger to life.
The asteroid is around 525 feet across, and what’s more fascinating is that Dimorphos is orbiting another, bigger asteroid.
NASA noted that DART would not generate enough of a shift to risk life on Earth.
“There is no scenario in which one or the other body can become a threat to the Earth. It’s just not scientifically possible, just because of momentum conservation and other things,” explained Thomas Zurbuchen from the NASA science mission directorate.
DART intends to alter the duration it takes for Dimorphos to complete an orbit around the larger asteroid.
According to calculations, one spin of the smaller asteroid takes around 11 hours and 55 minutes. Dimorphos should now complete a full orbit every 11 hours and 45 minutes if the DART mission is effective.
“The bottom line is, it’s a great thing. Someday, we are going to find an asteroid which has a high probability of hitting the Earth, and we are going to want to deflect it. When that happens, we should have, in advance, some experience knowing that this would work,” explained Ed Lu, the Asteroid Institute executive director.
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NASA will dig in deeper
DART scientists at NASA recognize the value of their work and strive tirelessly to advance the project.
“We’re moving an asteroid. We are changing the motion of a natural celestial body in space. Humanity has never done that before. This is stuff of science fiction books and really corny episodes of Star Trek from when I was a kid, and now it’s real. And that’s kind of astonishing that we are actually doing that, and what that bodes for the future of what we can do,” explained a DART program scientist, Tom Statler.
Lindley Johnson, NASA’s Planetary Defense Officer, said, “It’s something that we need to get done so that we know what’s out there and know what’s coming and have adequate time to prepare for it.”
Photo Credit: NASA
Source: NPR
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