NASA Probe Ready To Slam Into An Asteroid This Month (space.com) 25
On Sept. 26, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission will slam headfirst into a small asteroid in the name of planetary defense. "[S]cientists hope that should a dangerous asteroid threaten the planet in the future, a mission like DART could avert the disaster," reports Space.com. From the report: The theory goes that if scientists ever detected an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, an impactor probe could realign the orbit of the space rock, ensuring that it crossed Earth's path when our planet was a safe distance away. But scientists don't want to be working only from theory if the situation arises. That's where DART's dramatic destruction comes into play. The spacecraft will slam into a small asteroid called Dimorphos, which like clockwork orbits a larger near-Earth asteroid called Didymos every 11 hours and 55 minutes. (Neither asteroid poses any threat to Earth, and DART won't change that.) The DART impact should adjust the orbit of Dimorphos, cutting its circuit by perhaps 10 minutes.
Scientists on Earth will be spending weeks after the impact measuring the actual change in the moonlet's orbit to compare with their predictions. The work will refine scientists' understanding of how asteroids respond to impactors and help to tune any future missions to the necessary amount of orbital change. "This isn't just a one-off event," Nancy Chabot, the DART coordination lead at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, which runs the mission, said during the news conference. "We want to know what happened to Dimorphos, but more important, we want to understand what that means for potentially applying this technique in the future."
While the stakes are low compared to any scenario that would motivate a real asteroid-deflecting mission, the difficulty is the same. "This is incredibly challenging," Evan Smith, the deputy mission system engineer, said during the news conference, noting that the spacecraft will only be able to see Dimorphos itself about an hour and a half before impact. "This is a par-one course, so we're going in for the hit this time." And if something doesn't go according to plan? Mission personnel are pretty confident that, as long as the spacecraft hits its target, there should be something to see. "If DART collides with Dimorphos and then you don't see any orbital period change, this would be exceptionally surprising," Chabot said. "Just the amount of momentum that DART is bringing in on its own from the weight of the spacecraft slamming into Dimorphos is enough to shift its orbit in a measurable way."
Scientists on Earth will be spending weeks after the impact measuring the actual change in the moonlet's orbit to compare with their predictions. The work will refine scientists' understanding of how asteroids respond to impactors and help to tune any future missions to the necessary amount of orbital change. "This isn't just a one-off event," Nancy Chabot, the DART coordination lead at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, which runs the mission, said during the news conference. "We want to know what happened to Dimorphos, but more important, we want to understand what that means for potentially applying this technique in the future."
While the stakes are low compared to any scenario that would motivate a real asteroid-deflecting mission, the difficulty is the same. "This is incredibly challenging," Evan Smith, the deputy mission system engineer, said during the news conference, noting that the spacecraft will only be able to see Dimorphos itself about an hour and a half before impact. "This is a par-one course, so we're going in for the hit this time." And if something doesn't go according to plan? Mission personnel are pretty confident that, as long as the spacecraft hits its target, there should be something to see. "If DART collides with Dimorphos and then you don't see any orbital period change, this would be exceptionally surprising," Chabot said. "Just the amount of momentum that DART is bringing in on its own from the weight of the spacecraft slamming into Dimorphos is enough to shift its orbit in a measurable way."
Re: Sure, an asteroid will destroy life on earth (Score:2)
Parent signed his/her name to their comment.
Who's the real snowflake, AC?
Re:Sure, an asteroid will destroy life on earth (Score:5, Interesting)
We know beyond any doubt that impactors have caused mass extinctions on this planet before, so the threat is credible. And if such an event occurs, it will literally make all of our other concerns trivial. Consequently, it's worth spending some effort on the problem.
It's exactly like AGW. Deniers cry about how we have problems now that have to be addressed which are more important. But that's exactly the opposite of how existential threats work. You have to address them concurrently to everything else, because if you don't, nothing else you're doing means a damn. Consequently, any plan which conflicts with addressing them is a bad one.
Your plan is bad, and you should feel bad.
Re: Sure, an asteroid will destroy life on earth (Score:2)
Starlink [Re: Sure, an asteroid will destroy...] (Score:5, Informative)
Eventually, SpaceX will have so many satellites orbiting the earth that an asteroid wont be able to get through.
I'm sure that this is intended to be funny, but just for the record, Starlink satellites weight 650 pounds. A 1-km asteroid would weigh about 1.4 billion tonnes [real-world...oblems.com].
Hitting Starlink satellite won't slow an asteroid down. Hitting a million Starlink satellites won't slow an asteroid down.
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Obviously the satellites can't stop asteroids without nets attached. Wait... the starlink satellites are part of a network... and the network is based on lasers... I see a new plan forming!
Re:Sure, an asteroid will destroy life on earth (Score:4, Insightful)
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Last we checked, NASA can chew gum and walk at the same time.
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Re: Sure, an asteroid will destroy life on earth (Score:3)
NASA is a world leader in climate change and air pollution research, and they have been for decades. James Hansen, a NASA scientist, was/is one of the pioneers of modern climatology. NASA's Earth science program, which is largely dedicated to climate change and air pollution research, has a budget of $2 billion.
NASA also happens to have a space program. The dart mission cost $325 million, 1.4% of NASA's total budget ($24 billion), and 1/6th of its Earth science budget. That seems like a reasonable investmen
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NASA is a world leader in climate change and air pollution research ... the red neck must be strong in you.
Rofl
Picking a fight with asteroids is a bad idea (Score:5, Funny)
Slamming into asteroids hurts us more than it hurts them! Are you ready for the consequences when they slam us back?
Re: Picking a fight with asteroids is a bad idea (Score:2)
It makes me think no one at NASA has ever PLAYED Asteriods!
I find this concerning.
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Are they launching the probe with the SLS? (Score:1)
Well, good luck with that!
Maybe we should smash the SLS into the asteroid.
If we can get it at least a two feet up in the air this time.
Seems like another message between the lines here. (Score:1)
impact [Re:Seems like another message between...] (Score:3)
Seems like a cover to arm probes with weapons.
Nope, no weapons. The probe itself hits the asteroid.
Usually you try not to run into asteroids with a probe. This one, however, is trying for a direct hit (on a little one).
If a space probe is effective enough to take out an asteroid
The probe doesn't "take out" the asteroid. The impact will change the motion of the asteroid by a very very little bit.
Even a little bit can make a difference. If the probe hitting an asteroid deflects the asteroid by 0.1 meters per second, and you hit it two years before impact, its trajectory will be deviated by the radius of the Earth
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This is planned, right? (Score:2)
Not just something that went haywire and will just tumble out of control and slam into something?
I mean, it's NASA, I gotta ask...
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~BAM!~
NASA: "Uh...well, we meant to do that. It was an... impact displacement test; yah that's it, impact displacement test!"