NASA just announced a huge success Arrow The mission is the first unmanned spacecraft destined to smash into an asteroid at full speed to deflect its path in space. The
The National Center for Aeronautics and Space Administration Launched an experiment to prevent future collisions with Earth, which could be catastrophic, as it happened 66 million years ago When a similar phenomenon caused the extinction of most life on Earth.
The impact was at 7:14 a.m. ET
NASA confirmed the impact at 19:14 (Eastern time), which reported that the collision occurred at 3.9 miles per second on the surface of the asteroid Demorphos, located about 11 million kilometers from Earth.
The asteroid was far from Earth
The spacecraft was equipped with transmission equipment that allowed viewing of the effect in real time and worked perfectly. However, astronomers will have to wait days or even weeks to see if the spacecraft has achieved its goal of slightly changing the asteroid’s orbit.
DART mission: the historical impact of the first man-made object on a celestial body
The mission cost $330 million
The project was called Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) and the dispatched spacecraft was the size of a school bus, and the mission cost more than $330 million.
Hit Dimorphos
The asteroid is called Demorphos (“shaklan” in Greek), and it’s more than 175 yards in diameter and is a satellite of another larger asteroid called Didymos with a diameter of about 850 yards. NASA chose both asteroids because they pose no threat to Earth.
DART targeted Dimorphos but there are still Didymos
The effect of DART on Dimorphos It probably caused a crater and released small rock fragments into space. The entire event was recorded by a small satellite developed by Italian space agency That followed the process from a distance to take pictures of the impact and send them to scientists.
The NASA administrator compared the mission to Armageddon
Before the impact, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson explained on Twitter that the goal of this experiment was to replicate what happened in the sci-fi movie “Armageddon,” in which a space mission is formed to destroy an asteroid dangerously close to Earth. In this case, the goal was to deflect the meteor slightly, as a strong impact could cause a domino effect as the rocks fell to the ground.
Currently, NASA It doesn’t have any object on its radar that could pose a direct threat to Earth over the next 100 years, but decided to test its technology to be ready.
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