No, this isn’t the plot line of a Hollywood blockbuster starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
NASA simply intentionally slammed a spacecraft, going 13,421 miles per hour, into an asteroid 6.8 million miles up within the sky (that is 28 occasions the gap of the moon to the Earth).
You’ll be able to watch all of it right here.
That is all a part of NASA’s $300 million Double Asteroid Redirection System Check (DART). Asteroid collision is a really actual risk to humanity, and NASA needs to experiment with methods to re-direct any asteroid that is likely to be hurtling in direction of Earth sooner or later.
Astronomers selected an asteroid named Dimorphos as their goal. Dimorphos, which is in regards to the measurement of the Washington monument, is not any direct risk to Earth. However it’s about the identical measurement as asteroids that would endanger the planet. DART’s mission is to deflect the asteroid off its course in order that if it had been truly heading in direction of Earth, it will miss its goal.
Within the “fishbowl” anticipating #DART to impression Dimorphos and provides it a nudge! pic.twitter.com/ubMjxQAnG9
— Invoice Nye (@BillNye) September 26, 2022
How Did the DART Mission Go?
The DART spacecraft made impression with Dimporphos right this moment at 7:15 pm ET.
In contrast to motion pictures similar to Armageddon, during which NASA nuked an asteroid to smithereens, the DART mission featured no mind-boggling explosions however fairly the picture of a tiny gray speck within the sky coming into focus because the spacecraft moved nearer to Dimorphos.
The ultimate picture from the spacecraft’s cockpit confirmed Dimorphos lined with boulders, after which the reside feed disappeared because the spacecraft divebombed into the asteroid.
NASA will evaluation pictures and information over the subsequent few days to see if the experiment labored in transferring Dimorphos. However for now, they’re celebrating the mission, which has been within the works since 2015, as a smashing success.