This hero probe will smash into an asteroid to see if we can deflect future killer rocks
More than 66 million years ago, an asteroid estimated to be about 10km across hit an area near the coast off the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico and scarred Earth's surface. Scientists believe the impact, which formed the Chicxulub crater, triggered a mass extinction event, killing off dinosaurs and other ancient plants and animal species.
An artist's impression of the DART spacecraft and on-looking LICIACube approaching asteroids Dimorphos and Didymos ... Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben The impact will trim about ten minutes off its orbital period, cutting it down to 11 hours and 45 minutes, and bringing it slightly closer to Didymos. Johnson said the change may be subtle but it will alter the asteroid's trajectory forever.The DART hero probe was launched on November 24, 2021 from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
DRACO will snap images of the target at a rate of one picture per second, helping craft a video stream for mission control to watch. DART's SmartNav algorithms will be used to achieve a precision lock. The fate of the Didymos system will depend on the size of the crater left by DART, Jay McMahon, an associate professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, explained to"Over a much longer timescale, the binary-YORP effect could cause the orbit to get smaller, possibly ending up with the two asteroids crashing," he said.
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