NASA is ready to knock an asteroid off course with its DART spacecraft

2 years ago 130

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test is preparing to clang into the asteroid Dimorphous successful an effort to alteration its orbit

Space 20 September 2022

By Alex Wilkins

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft volition smash into an asteroid adjacent week, successful the archetypal ever real-world planetary defence mission.

The 500-kilogram DART trade launched past twelvemonth connected 24 November and is owed to scope its destination, the 780-metre-wide asteroid Didymos, connected 26 September. Once it arrives, it volition purposefully clang into Didymos’s moon, the 160-metre-wide asteroid Dimorphous, successful an effort to divert the smaller rock’s orbit astir its genitor asteroid.

Neither Didymos nor Dimorphous presents immoderate menace to Earth, being 11 cardinal kilometres away, but ngo idiosyncratic Andy Rivkin astatine Johns Hopkins University successful Maryland and his squad anticipation the asteroid strategy tin enactment arsenic a test-bed for dealing with perchance deadly abstraction rocks.

“This is an experimentation astatine the kinds of scales that we privation to use, oregon that we mightiness use, if we ever request to deflect an asteroid for real,” said Rivkin during a property league astatine the Europlanet Science Congress successful Granada, Spain, connected 19 September.

The researchers volition deem the ngo a occurrence if DART’s impact, which volition beryllium astatine astir 6.6 kilometres per second, changes the magnitude of Dimorphous’s orbit by astatine slightest 73 seconds, springiness oregon instrumentality 10 per cent – but they deliberation that the existent diversion could beryllium person to astir 10 minutes.

Although DART has a camera onboard, the spacecraft volition beryllium destroyed connected impact, truthful won’t beryllium capable to spot the outcome. Instead, the squad volition trust connected LICIACube – a sister spacecraft from the Italian Space Agency that separated from DART connected 11 September – to instrumentality elaborate observations.

At a region of 55 kilometres from the interaction crater, LICIACube volition usage 2 cameras to seizure images and grounds information of the strike, arsenic good arsenic measurement its kinetic interaction connected Dimorphous and immoderate resulting plume from the clang site. “There volition beryllium an interaction that volition alteration the trajectory, determination volition beryllium a crater formed and aft determination volition beryllium ejecta that volition propagate done abstraction and LICIACube volition photograph this,” said Stavro Ivanovski astatine the Astronomical Observatory of Trieste successful Italy during the property conference.

There volition besides beryllium enactment from respective ground-based telescopes and abstraction observatories, including Hubble and James Webb, which volition instrumentality measurements of Didymos’s play and comparison it with past observations. “When Dimorphous moves successful beforehand of Didymos, we tin spot a brightness driblet owed to the shadow,” said Rivkin. “By measuring this brightness spell up and down, we’ll beryllium capable to measurement the play that it takes for Dimorphous to spell astir Didymos.”

While observations of the interaction itself volition beryllium transmitted to Earth soon aft it happens, its effect connected Dimorphous’s orbit volition instrumentality weeks oregon adjacent months to measurement to a precocious precision and frankincense uncover whether the ngo was a success, said Rivkin. Alongside LICIACube’s measurements, the European Space Agency is readying to motorboat a spacecraft called Hera successful 2024 to grounds the impact’s aftermath successful much detail.

Sign up to our escaped Launchpad newsletter for a voyage crossed the postulation and beyond, each Friday