The impact is the first test of a bold strategy that could be used to deflect any future asteroids that are on a collision course with Earth
locked on to Didymos. On final approach, about 50 minutes before impact, the system switched over to the moonlet and guided the spacecraft to its crash site. Making sure DART was locked on to the right object was crucial., DART’s deputy mission systems engineer said at a briefing before the impact. “We’re going to be watching the telemetry like hawks, very scared, but excited.” If DART missed its target, the team wouldn’t have another opportunity until 2024.
To test the crucial guidance system, DART’s DRACO camera swiveled to stare at Jupiter and its four largest moons in July and August of this year. Watching as the icy moon Europa popped out from behind the watercolored world, DART was able to practice locking on to a small object emerging from behind a larger one, similar to what the spacecraft would encounter as Dimorphos rounded the bend of its parent asteroid just before the collision.
“The dart itself is only 2.5 millimeters—it’s tiny—and you take the dart at JFK and you throw it to Dulles, and you hit the center of the bull’s-eye, except you don’t know where the dartboard is at,” Adams told reporters.Asteroid deflection technology will only be useful if there is something to deflect, which is why NASA and other institutions are focused on finding and tracking all the space rocks that could be on Earth-crossing orbits.
Earth’s evolution has been molded by impacts from the very start. Comets and asteroids have pummeled the planet since it was a molten planetary embryo. Some of these objects delivered the water that now fills Earth’s oceans, lakes, and streams. Others ignited cataclysmic mass extinctions.
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