As it turns out, disaster Maybe he was right. NASA officials are taking a page from the Michael Bay movie that on Monday, they will smash a satellite with an incoming asteroid in the world’s first “planetary defense” test. As part of the space agency’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) program, a vending machine-sized vehicle is set to collide with an asteroid that scientists have dubbed Demorphos.
Located about seven million miles from Earth, officials hope the rover impact will be able to use enough kinetic energy to disturb the asteroid from its flight path. It should be noted that Dimorphos, according to scientists, are not on their way to collide with Earth and DART is just a test.
If all goes as planned, the impact should occur around 7:14 p.m. ET on Monday, September 26.
“It’s a tough job,” said Julie Bellrose of NASA JPL, DART Astronautics Team Leader He said in a statement. “A big part of what the navigation team is working on is getting DART into a 9-mile-wide (15-kilometre) square of space 24 hours before impact.”
Also part of the test is the Italian Space Agency’s LICIACube, a camera set up to take pictures of the event that scientists can then use to evaluate the results.
“We are working with ASI to get the LICIACube to within 25 to 50 miles (40 to 80 kilometers) of Dimorphos after just two to three minutes of a DART impact — close enough to get good images of the impact and ejected plumes, but not so close that the LICIACube might hit it. projectile,” added Dan Lube, Navigation Leader at LICIACube Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Demorphos is orbiting a larger asteroid called Didymos, and scientists hope to speed up its first 11.9-minute orbit by several minutes.
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