Scientists confirmed Tuesday that NASA’s DART probe collided with the asteroid Demorphos, smashing it into the rock enough to change its course.
Demorphos is described as a small satellite, orbiting the larger asteroid Didymos, more than 11 million kilometers (6.8 million miles) from Earth. The satellite orbited its mother every 11 hours and 55 minutes until DART hit Demorphos on September 26. Its orbit is now shorter and lasts 11 hours and 23 minutes. The collision changed space travel forever.
The mission is the first test to demonstrate how machines made on Earth could one day deflect a potentially dangerous asteroid and the first time that humans have managed to alter the orbit of a celestial body. Telescopes around the world tracking Demorphos’ orbit around Didymus have confirmed that its orbit has changed, reports NASA.
The Hubble Space Telescope captured the tail of debris from DART’s collision with Dimorphos … Image credit: NASA / ESA / STScI
“We did the first ever planetary defense test,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said at a press conference Tuesday, drawing the attention of millions around the world because DART sounded like a movie plot, but it wasn’t Hollywood.
Space agencies and laboratories on Earth have been working on planetary defense strategies and technologies for decades prior to this mission. Several NEO monitoring programs have been launched to detect asteroids that could pose a threat to our fragile homeland and to calculate impact risks.
If these asteroids are discovered and accessed in time, the next deadly scattering of space rocks appears to be the best option for saving our world from destruction.
Tracking potentially dangerous asteroids orbiting our galaxy is fine, but space agencies must have the ability to push Earth out of harm’s way once a terrifying rock is identified. DART shows that kinetic impactors can successfully deflect an asteroid and move it away from the sky.
Below is a video of DART’s communication with Dimorphos, captured by NASA’s Asteroid Early Warning System (ATLAS).
Atlas Tracking of DART Spacecraft Collision in Didimos! pic.twitter.com/26IKwB9VSo
Atlas Project (fallingstarIfA) September 27, 2022
Scientists expected the DART collision to reduce Demorphos’ orbit by 10 minutes, but actually reduced it by 32 minutes. The results are within the probability predicted by the model, said Nancy Chabot, head of DART coordination at the Johns Hopkins Laboratory of Applied Physics. She added that the deflection effect was enhanced by the fact that Demorphos knocked rocks off their surface on impact. The debris ejected from the asteroid soon formed a 10,000 km (6,210 mi) long tail (see above).
“This shows that Demorphos’ orbital period around Didymus has changed by 4%, which is only a small change,” says Chabot. “But if you want to do it in the future, which might work, you should do it years ago so that this kind of asteroid deflection can be used in the future. Alert time is really important to do this and as part of a much broader planetary defense strategy. “
The European Space Agency will launch another mission, HERA, to send a spacecraft and two cubic satellites to study the effects of the DART collision in more detail in 2024.
“We all have a responsibility to protect our planet,” Nelson added. “Ultimately, that’s the only thing we have and this mission shows NASA is preparing for what space holds.” ®
