A NASA spacecraft has rammed an asteroid in an unprecedented test to see if a potentially menacing space rock could be knocked off course
In this image made from a NASA livestream, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft crashes into an asteroid on Monday, Sept. 26, 2022. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — — A NASA spacecraft rammed an asteroid at blistering speed Monday in an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock menaces Earth.
Telescopes around the world and in space aimed at the same point in the sky to capture the spectacle. Though the impact was immediately obvious — Dart’s radio signal abruptly ceased — it will be days or even weeks to determine how much the asteroid’s path was changed."We’re embarking on a new era of humankind," said NASA's Lori Glaze, planetary science division director.
The pair have been orbiting the sun for eons without threatening Earth, making them ideal save-the-world test candidates., the vending machine-size Dart — short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test — navigated to its target using new technology developed by Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, the spacecraft builder and mission manager.
With an image beaming back to Earth every second, Adams and other ground controllers in Laurel, Maryland, watched with growing excitement as Dimorphos loomed larger and larger in the field of view alongside its bigger companion. Within minutes, Dimorphos was alone in the pictures; it looked like a giant gray lemon, but with boulders and rubble on the surface. The last image froze on the screen as the radio transmission ended.
Planetary defense experts prefer nudging a threatening asteroid or comet out of the way, given enough lead time, rather than blowing it up and creating multiple pieces that could rain down on Earth. Multiple impactors might be needed for big space rocks or a combination of impactors and so-called gravity tractors, not-yet-invented devices that would use their own gravity to pull an asteroid into a safer orbit.
Significantly less than half of the estimated 25,000 near-Earth objects in the deadly 460-foot range have been discovered, according to NASA. And fewer than 1% of the millions of smaller asteroids, capable of widespread injuries, are known.
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