Space arrows: NASA rockets collide with asteroids

On November 24 at 7 a.m. Belgian time, NASA will send a SpaceX rocket into space on a special mission. The scientists wanted to test whether they could make an asteroid called Dimorphos change its orbit through a rocket impact. The asteroid with a diameter of more than 150 meters is located 11 million kilometers from Earth. In terms of space, it’s relatively close. The asteroid poses no direct threat to our planet, but its job is to test whether we can protect Earth in this way in the future.

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The mission was planned some time ago, but today NASA shared the exact date of the rocket’s departure with the world. The space mission will officially begin next month. The collision with the asteroid itself will not occur until September 2022. The Red Asteroid Reeriction test, DART for short, will try to make the asteroid’s path change direction by 1%. While this may not sound like much, it has a huge impact. The European Space Agency (ESA) reports that this will be the first time humans have measured the orbit of a space object.

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“DART is the first step to testing a method that can change the path of a dangerous asteroid,” said Andrea Riley, head of the NASA mission. “Dangerous asteroids are of global concern, so we are excited to be working with our European counterparts to gather as much data as possible with this test.” After the collision, the European Space Agency will investigate how successfully the asteroid changed its orbit.

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DART will fly to Dimorphos at a speed of 14,000 km/h. The camera on the DART and the necessary navigation software will ensure that the collision occurs correctly. Only a few years later, it will become clear whether the effects actually work. This is because large dust clouds formed first, which made observations difficult.

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Potentially hazardous “solid” space objects within a radius of 50 million km are being investigated with great interest by NASA and other space organizations. Currently, there is no reason to assume an “Armageddon” scenario, but NASA and the European Space Agency still want to prepare well in this way.

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