NASA’s 22,000 km/h kamikaze probe will crash into an asteroid 11 million km from Earth, and the images are likely to be spectacular. We have nothing to fear, but we could learn a lot about how to save our planet if a giant boulder were to come crashing down on us in the distant future. Read more about the DART mission in the article.

When should the impact occur?

September 27 at 2:14 (Romanian time). NASA has scheduled a LIVE broadcast that will begin at 0:30.

DART – What’s the rate?

For the first time, humanity is trying to change the trajectory of a celestial object in space, and the mission is now a test for the distant future, when a large asteroid will be able to collide with Earth. The probe will be destroyed in the impact, but this will be the sixth asteroid that humanity will study up close, and there is much to learn before and after the impact.

• The DART mission, or how NASA will try to divert an asteroid from its path

The mission has been planned for a long time and will try to get as much information as possible, even if the probe gets dusty. For example, once we reach Dimorphos, we will see what effect its new trajectory will have on another asteroid.

The probe will collide with the asteroid at a speed of 22,000 km/h, but before the collision it will transmit images at a rate of one per second: first of both asteroids of the binary system, and then only of its target. The most detailed will be the images just before the impact that destroys the DART probe.

What exactly is the mission?

For the most part, space probes are designed to last as many years as possible and cover billions of kilometers. The current probe, although it cost 250 million dollars, will have a short life, because it will hit an asteroid that is 11 million kilometers from Earth.

• Why asteroid mining is still much closer to science fiction than reality

The mission is called Double Asteroid Redirection (DART) and is a kind of “kamikaze” mission, since the probe, which was launched on November 24, 2021 and weighs about 670 kg, does not have, like other space probes, super-scientific instruments on board, but only navigation aids and, most importantly, a video camera.

NASA began work on the mission in 2015, and the binary asteroid system the probe is headed for was discovered by astronomers in the 1990s.

Is there a danger to the Earth?

No, not at all. There is no scenario in which a deflection would send an asteroid to Earth.

Dimorph and his much older brother Didymus

Dimorphos, the asteroid it is supposed to intercept, poses no threat to Earth, but will only serve as a celestial object for this mission. The asteroid is 163 meters wide, and the goal of the mission is to see if it will change its speed and trajectory in any way after impact, and if so, how.

NASA made the comparison: Asteroid Dimorphos is like an American football field filled with rocks, and the probe that hit it is small in comparison, about the size of a Smart car. NASA engineers have stated that this mission poses NO danger to Earth and the asteroid cannot disintegrate on impact.

Dimorphos orbits the much larger asteroid Didymos, which is 790 meters in diameter. The two make up a binary system, and such a system is ideal for this kind of test, because the impact should change Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos by 1%, enough for everything to be detected by Earth-based observatories.

What can happen after a collision?

If this happens as calculated, the orbit of the smaller asteroid (ie Dimorphos) will approach the larger asteroid Didymos. The magnitude of the change in orbit will depend on the structure and composition of Dimorphos.

If Dimorphos is very solid and the DART creates a small impact crater, this asteroid will gain speed and get a little closer to Didymos.

On the other hand, if Dimorphos is like a bunch of boulders that are held together by gravity, the impact will create a deep crater and some of the boulders will bounce off into space. And in this case, Dimorphos is suitable for Didymos.

Dimorphos currently takes 11 hours and 55 minutes to make a complete revolution around Dydimos. If the test is successful, one orbit should last 11 hours and 45 minutes.

From how the probe will be destroyed, we will also learn what the structure and composition of Dimorphos is. The small Italian-built LICIACube satellite, weighing 14 kg, was launched 11 days before the key day. It will film everything from a distance of 1,000 km, and also show the impact it had on the asteroid. This “cubsat” will approach and fly around the binary to get new images.

Asteroids and Earth – a story with fears, but also groundless exaggerations

We know that there are 26,000 asteroids that regularly approach Earth’s orbit, and the most famous ones that humanity has been able to visit are Bennu and Ryuga.

Researchers have come up with many ways to dispose of an asteroid that will become dangerous for Earth. Among the scenarios considered were: destruction by nuclear warheads, “burning” of the asteroid by lasers, or a change in trajectory after the asteroid “hooked” an approaching shuttle. Other options were considered, but all of them are too complicated for modern technologies.

Asteroids are the remnants of planetesimals, or small planets, from the early days of the solar system, 4.5 billion years ago. They were supposed to form a planet, but Jupiter’s strong gravity prevented them. Asteroids are very useful in space exploration because they are assumed to have remained unchanged since the formation of the solar system, and if we study them, we can learn important things about the formation of space.

There are often exaggerated reports in the news that an asteroid may soon hit Earth and wreak havoc, but the truth is that there is no record of anything like that happening this century. For example, the dreaded Apophis, an asteroid named after the Egyptian god of evil and destruction, will not pose any danger of hitting Earth for at least 100 years, NASA and the European Space Agency announced in 2021, which also removed it from the asteroid risk list. , which may collide with our planet.