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NASA’s DART spacecraft is about to slam into an asteroid

NASA’s DART spacecraft is about to slam into an asteroid

On Sept. 26, NASA will ram a spacecraft into an asteroid to test techniques that may eventually be needed to prevent a cataclysmic asteroid strike on Earth.
By Christopher Cokinos  |  Published: Saturday, September 24, 2022
RELATED TOPICS: ROBOTIC SPACEFLIGHT | ASTEROIDS
DARTspacecraftimpact
DART approaches its target, asteroid Dimorphos, in this artist’s illustration. The spacecraft is on track to smash into the space rock on Monday, Sept. 26. NASA

Move over, Bruce Willis. Your asteroid-deflecting services — dramatically portrayed in Armageddon — are no longer needed. At least, we hope so.

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, spacecraft is set to impact the tiny asteroid Dimorphos on Monday (Sept. 26) at 7:14 P.M. EDT.

This has never been done before, and the results of DART will help humans learn how to prevent asteroids from slamming into the Earth, potentially causing local, regional, or even global devastation.

Such asteroid impacts are low-probability but high-risk events. Current estimates suggest that “while no known asteroid larger than 140 meters [460 feet] in size has a significant chance to hit Earth for the next 100 years, only about 40 percent of those asteroids have been found as of October 2021,” according to the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, which is managing the DART mission.

READ MORE from Astronomy Magazine’s web site.