NASA to send a spacecraft to orbit an asteroid for the “planet defense” mission

This is the plot of many disaster films, a Asteroid Goes to Earth and scientists have no idea what to do. The NASA I would like to avoid this situation and start one Experience This month to learn how To divert an asteroid The axis of our planet and To save humanity. This work “Planetary protection“One has to send Character Collided with the alleged asteroid.

NASA has indicated that the plan DART Will start on 23 November 2021 And Thanks for sending a machine into space SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket. Its purpose is to test the possibility of deviating from the path of an asteroid, in a real situation. The experimental asteroid moon, called Dimarpos, is 160 meters long and orbits millions of kilometers away from us. Ten months later, the mass will approach Earth and the human spacecraft will be propelled at 23,800 km / h. Their impact is expected to reduce the speed of the asteroid by almost 1%, which scientists say is enough to divert its axis. Anyway, this is what they will pay close attention to.

This task should allow them to collect Important informationFor the survival of mankind, thanks to a small satellite of travel. Andy Rivkin, lead researcher on the experiment, “The Earth is always attacked by asteroids and rock fragments. Almost every year we are attacked by objects the size of a desk“. Every thousands of years, he assures us that objects the size of this asteroid will hit the planet. Fortunately, we are far away. Who killed the dinosaurs on our planet 65 million years ago.