![]() The point of the exercise is to see how significantly the current path of Dimorphos can be altered by the impact in a technique NASA calls “asteroid deflector by kinetic impactor.” What is Dimorphos and why is it a good test target?ĭimorphos is a moonlet asteroid, orbiting a larger asteroid named Didymos, which is about a half-mile in diameter. Sponsored by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office and led by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, is a $325 million project designed to crash the 1,260 pound spacecraft traveling at 14,000 mph into Dimorphos, an asteroid that’s 525 feet in diameter and 7 million miles from Earth. Why did NASA crash a perfectly good spaceship? Moments later, the mission engineers declared a direct hit. The image of Dimorphos began to fill the screen, with the last images seemingly just feet above the asteroids craggy surface. Those logged onto NASA’s YouTube channel saw the Dimorphos asteroid slowly fill the frame in the minutes before impact when the image screen froze - then went to black.Īt 30 minutes from impact, Dimorphos was still 7,000 miles away and just a tiny bright speck in the live, but slightly delayed, images streaming back to Earth.Īt around 20 minutes from impact, NASA announced on its webcast that the spacecraft had achieved “precision lock” on Dimorphos and would be zeroing in on its target near the center of the asteroid.Īt around 5 minutes before impact, Dimorphos was a bigger, brighter spot about 1,110 miles away and its companion asteroid, Didymos, appeared much larger in the foreground.Ī few moments later, Didymos dropped out of view and Dimorphos began to fill the screen.īoulders and shadows became visible on the egg-shaped body as the craft got nearer. ![]() Thanks to a camera on board the spaceship, the lead-up to the collision was live-streamed back to Earth. NASA says this particular asteroid is millions of miles away and was not a threat to Earth before the crash, nor will it be a hazard following impact. The world had a front-row seat Monday evening as NASA successfully crashed a spacecraft into a distant asteroid to see if it can move the rock, a method that will come in handy should a planet-killing asteroid ever come hurtling toward Earth.
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