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What’s occurred: NASA is celebrating the success of humanity’s first take a look at of a planetary protection system: crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid in an effort to change its orbit. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Take a look at spacecraft, or DART, was deliberately smashed into the asteroid Dimorphos at 7.14pm ET final night time, spelling the tip to a profitable 10 month mission.
A small digicam mounted on DART livestreamed the spacecraft’s regular progress in direction of the 160 meter-wide asteroid, positioned about 6.8 million miles from Earth, again to controllers based mostly on the Johns Hopkins College Utilized Physics Laboratory. The crew cheered as Dimorphos grew nearer and nearer, earlier than the livestream lower out on affect with the asteroid. The strike was “mainly a bullseye,” DART mission programs engineer Elena Adams mentioned. You possibly can watch the livestream for your self to see the precise second DART struck Dimorphos.
Why it issues: The mission, which was launched in November final yr, demonstrates a method for humanity to guard itself from asteroids. Whereas Dimorphos itself had not been on track to crash into Earth, the venture demonstrates NASA’s means to deflect comparable asteroids sooner or later. Researchers imagine the crash might have shortened Dimorphos’ orbit by round 10 minutes, which is sufficient to make a big distinction to the trail an asteroid travels. NASA Administrator Invoice Nelson known as the mission an “unprecedented success for planetary protection.”
What’s subsequent: The subsequent step is to review the asteroid utilizing telescopes on Earth to verify that DART’s affect altered the asteroid’s orbit round a bigger asteroid known as Didymos.
Learn extra: Be taught extra concerning the DART spacecraft, and the extremely exact math required to make sure it hit the asteroid on this fascinating characteristic.
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