Report by Shuchi Giridhar
The first-ever Planetary Defence Test, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission launched by NASA, successfully collided with its target, the asteroid Dimorphos. This mission was launched on November 23rd, 2021 at 1:20 a.m EDT (Eastern Daylight Time).
It has been 10 months since the launch of the mission and the mission has finally encountered success.
The Dimorphos asteroid is 530 feet in diameter which is quite a small body. Dimorphos is close to the size of a football field and is of no harm to earth. It orbits a much bigger asteroid Didymos, which has a diameter of 2,560 feet.
DART has been estimated to have moved the Didymos asteroid by 1% or ten minutes.
NASA’s scientists said that even a small impact makes a big difference to slow down or change the direction of the asteroid.
A technique called Kinetic impact is used to deploy the asteroid.
NASA wants to ensure it is 100% ready in case of an asteroid approaching the earth or a scenario like that.
So, it has employed the DART mission testing out this Kinetic impact technique. This technique is basically supposed to change the asteroid’s orbit by crashing into it.
But in this process, the spacecraft crashed into the asteroid would be sacrificed as it would be blown into bits on impact. This mission proved that they could navigate a spacecraft to crash into an object and actually alter its path.
NASA has covered the event using its Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO). A Video clip of the last 5 minutes before crashing was posted by NASA on its twitter handle- @NASA.
Don’t want to miss a thing? Watch the final moments from the #DARTMission on its collision course with asteroid Dimporphos. pic.twitter.com/2qbVMnqQrD
— NASA (@NASA) September 26, 2022
Thomas Zurbuchen said that planetary defence was globally unifying since every human lives on earth. Thomas Zurbuchen is the associate administrator for Science Mission Directorate at the NASA headquarters located in Washington.
A global NASA team is using dozens of telescopes to view the asteroid system since it is almost 7 million miles or 11 million kilometres from Earth.
In order to define how effectively the DART spacecraft changed the asteroid, this team will study the Dimorphos’ asteroids orbit. The results of the test will determine how well this technique has worked.
Image Credit: NASA