NASA confirmed that it immediately crashed its plane into an asteroid. What the hell, is the asteroid a big threat to Earth?
It turns out that the mission called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) is a test from the space agency to ward off if later there are asteroids that harm the planet.
The DART aircraft will be flown aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX on November 23, US time. The asteroid that will be hit is called Dimorphos, a small moon orbiting the asteroid Dydymos whose location is categorized as quite close to Earth.
In September 2022, Didymos and Dimorphos will be relatively close to Earth, about 11 million kilometers away. It was the perfect time to crash a NASA spacecraft with the aim of changing its path of movement in space.
The collision process will be recorded by a satellite from the Italian Space Agency to find out what happened. In addition, there will also be observations from telescopes on Earth in order to measure how much the Dimorphos asteroid orbit changes after being hit.
"This DART is the first step in testing methods of deflecting dangerous asteroids. Potentially threatening asteroids are a global concern so we are pleased to work with colleagues from Europe and Italy to collect data as accurately as possible," said Andrea Riley, DART program executive.
"DART will be the first space mission to execute a kinetic collision with the aim of changing the motion of an asteroid in space. The target is the small asteroid Dimorphos," NASA said.
"LICIACube, a small satellite provided by the Italian Space Agency will travel alongside DART and will be tasked with taking footage of how the impact impacted the asteroid. Subsequent observations by telescopes on Earth will measure its effectiveness," they added.
