A harmless asteroid millions of miles away is about to be rammed by a NASA spacecraft at 14,000 mph. Because? The fate of the human race may one day depend on doing the same.
It’s been 66 million years since an asteroid crashing into Earth ended the reign of the dinosaurs, scientists say, and they’re determined to prevent a similar end for humanity.
Sky News takes a look at NASA’s latest experiment – a $325m (£301m) planetary defense test – and answers some key questions about how it could prove useful in the future.
What is the Dart Spaceship?
Nicknamed Faster than the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, Dart is essentially a battering ram the size of a small vending machine.
He faces certain destruction in fulfilling his goal.
Dart weighs 570 kg and has a single instrument: a camera used to navigate, aim and chronicle its eventual demise.
Where is the spaceship going?
Dart is headed for a pair of asteroids about seven million miles from Earth. His target is called Dimorphos, which is the smaller offspring of Didymos (Greek for twin).
Dimorphos is about 525 feet (160 meters) in diameter and orbits the much larger Didymos at a distance of less than a mile (1.2 km).
NASA insists there is zero chance an asteroid will threaten Earth, now or in the future. That’s why the couple was chosen.
The spacecraft’s navigation is designed to distinguish between the two asteroids and, in the last 50 minutes, target the smaller one.
What about impact?
“It’s really about asteroid deflection, not disruption,” said Nancy Chabot, a planetary scientist and mission team leader at Johns Hopkins University, which is managing the effort.
“This won’t blow up the asteroid. It won’t split it into lots of pieces.”
Instead, the impact will excavate a meter-sized crater and hurl about two million pounds of rock and dirt into space.
Why do scientists do this?
The impact should be enough to push the asteroid into a slightly tighter orbit around its companion space rock, proving that if a killer asteroid is headed our way, we’ll have a fighting chance to deflect it. – him
Cameras and telescopes will observe the crash, but it will take months to find out if it actually changed its orbit.
The observatories will follow the pair of asteroids as they circle the sun, to see if Dart altered Dimorphos’ orbit.
In 2024, a European spacecraft called Hera will retrace Dart’s journey to measure the results of the impact.
Although the predicted boost should only slightly change the moon’s position, it will make a big change over time, according to Chabot.
“So if you were going to do this for planetary defense, you would do it five, 10, 15, 20 years in advance for this technique to work,” he said.