Video. NASA will orbit an asteroid next year, which is a “planetary defense” mission

Within a year, a NASA spacecraft Deliberately collides with the surface of an asteroid. Ambition? Get out of its way. To carry out this mission, which is qualified as “planetary defense” Mankind must be prepared to face the impact of the future. Reminiscent of the scene from the movie “Armageddon” where Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck save the planet from a huge asteroid rushing towards Earth.

But what the American space agency is conducting here is a real test. Although none of the known large meteorites are currently in the course of a collision, this is something that is preparing for the event. “We don’t want to find ourselves in the position of an asteroid heading to Earth, where should we test this technique,” Lindley Johnson of NASA’s Planetary Defense explained at a news conference for the first time.

“Small feet”

Called DART (abbreviation for Dart and Double Asteroid Redirection Test in English), the mission will depart from California on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on November 23 at 10:20 pm local time. Ten months later, the spacecraft will hit its target and then be located eleven million kilometers from Earth – the moment when it is actually closest to Earth.

In fact, the target is twice as large: first a large asteroid, Didymus, which is 780 meters in diameter and twice the height of the Eiffel Tower. Also, in its orbit around it, is a moon, Timorbos, 160 meters in diameter – taller than the Statue of Liberty. It is on this moon that the ship, a hundred times smaller than that, will come to finish its race at a speed of 24,000 km per hour. Impact planning tons and tons of material.

But “it will not destroy the asteroid, it will give it a small blow,” explained Nancy Sabot, from Johns Hopkins University’s Laboratory of Applied Physics, which is working with NASA. Thus, he explained, the orbit of the largest asteroid would be reduced by “about 1%”. Thanks to the observations made by telescopes on Earth for decades, we now know that Timaros orbits Didimos in exactly 11 hours and 55 minutes.

Get an idea for the future

Using the same telescopes, this period will be measured again after the collision. It was probably “11 hours 45 minutes or something like that,” the researcher said. How much exactly? Scientists don’t know it, that’s what they want to find out. Many factors, including the angle of impact, the appearance of the asteroid’s surface, its composition or its exact mass, are unknown until now.

In this way, “If one day an asteroid is found to collide with the Earth […] We have an idea of ​​how much power this asteroid will need to miss Earth, ”said Andy Cheng of Johns Hopkins University. Andy Cheng said that the orbit around the Sun of the great asteroid Didymus will be slightly altered due to its gravitational relationship with the Moon. But this change is “immeasurably smaller.” So it was a very safe experience, ”he said.

Toolbox

The small satellite will make the trip. It will be released by the main ship ten days before the impact, and will deviate slightly from its own path using its propulsion system. Three minutes after the collision, in order to notice the effect of the shock and the abyss on the surface, it flies over the demurpos. The total cost of this work is $ 330 million. If the test is successful, “we think this technique could be part of a toolbox that we will begin to fill, in order to deflect an asteroid,” Lindley Johnson said.

For example, he cited the use of methods or lasers that could prolong the gravitational pull of a ship flying near an asteroid. But he recalled that identifying potential threats was paramount. “The strategy is to find these objects not only years ago, but decades before the danger of colliding with the Earth,” he stressed. About 27,000 asteroids near the blue planet are currently known. By 2300, the risk of conflict was only 0.057%.