![]() The idea is that, if you detect a potentially dangerous asteroid early enough, then it’ll only take a small shunt to send it onto a safer path. Instead, NASA has opted to command a solitary - and obviously uncrewed - probe to strike an asteroid head-on while travelling at 14,000 miles per hour in order to see how the impact would shift its orbit. There is a distinct lack of nuclear weapons, oversized drills, or Bruce Willis-es. Compared to Hollywood movies that deal with similar themes, the mission itself is relatively simplistic. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is the first step along the path to developing a planetary defence against colossal asteroids. However, unlike the dinosaurs, we may have the technological capabilities and the foresight needed to avert such a fate. ![]() It is completely possible that the impact of another enormous asteroid could doom the human race to extinction. ![]() The most recent monster impact happened roughly 66 million years ago, when a 6 mile (10 km) wide asteroid collided with our planet, and gouged out a massive crater, the remains of which can still be found on the Yucatan Peninsula today.Ī combination of the devastation wrought by the initial impact, and the environmental changes brought about by the resulting fallout, sounded the death knell for 75 percent of all animal life on Earth, and effectively ended the age of the dinosaurs. Image from the Hubble Space Telescope revealing Dimorphos' massive debris trail - Credits: NASA/ESA/STScI/Hubble ![]() In the coming months telescopes will continue to watch the asteroids in an attempt to narrow down Dimorphos’ orbit, and to gain a better understanding of how the debris that blasted off its surface in the wake of the impact had a role in altering its trajectory. NASA has revealed that the DART collision was able to reduce Dimorphos’ orbital period by roughly 32 minutes to 11 hours and 23 minutes - over 25 times greater than the minimum success parameters. In the two weeks following the impact, the asteroids have been meticulously studied by powerful Earthbound and orbital telescopes, including Hubble, Webb, and a tiny satellite that was released by the DART spacecraft before smashing into the surface. This would prove that kinetic impacts have the ability to significantly change an asteroid’s orbital characteristics, and potentially deflect an asteroid in the future that is on a collision course with Earth. At the time, NASA stated that the mission would be a success if the kinetic force of the impact was able to reduce the usual time that it took the smaller asteroid to orbit the larger asteroid Didymos - roughly 11 hours and 55 minutes - by a mere 73 seconds. ![]()
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