In late September, the mission ship Dart intentionally crashed into its target, the asteroid Dimorphos, which is the satellite of a larger asteroid called Didymos.
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Posted on 10/11/2022 8:43 PM Updated on 10/11/2022 9:06 PM
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This is “a pivotal moment for the defense of the planet” and “for humanity,” said NASA chief Bill Nelson. The American space agency managed to deflect an asteroid from its trajectory by projecting a spacecraft onto its surface during an unprecedented test mission in late September, NASA announced on Tuesday, October 11.
The mission ship Dart intentionally crashed into its target, the asteroid Dimorphos, which is the satellite of a larger asteroid called Didymos. The NASA device managed to move it and shorten its orbit by 32 minutes, Bill Nelson said at a news conference.
threat training
It would already have been “considered a huge success if it [le vaisseau] had shortened the orbit by only about 10 minutes. But he actually shortened it by 32 minutes,” welcomed the NASA boss. With this mission, “Nasa has proven that we mean business as defenders of the planet,” he said. affirmed.
Dimorphos, which was about 11 million kilometers from Earth at the time of the impact, is about 160 meters in diameter and poses no threat to our planet. The Dart mission is the first to test such a technique. This allows NASA to train if one day an asteroid threatens to hit Earth.