When NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) slams into the tiny asteroid Dimorphos, it will be our first attempt to demonstrate our ability to deflect dangerous incoming asteroids.
When NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test slams into the tiny asteroid Dimorphos, it will be our first attempt to demonstrate our ability to deflect dangerous incoming asteroids.
The experiment marks a change of pace for NASA, which has to date focused its spacecraft on science. However, according to Lindley Johnson, the director of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, the DART mission does not signify a change in policy of thinking about hazardous objects, but rather a continuation of the work done so far.
Should DART prove successful, planetary scientists view it as just the beginning of our efforts to learn how to defend Earth from hazardous asteroids. But he’s dubious that we could deflect such a large asteroid using just a kinetic impactor. “I don’t think that would work because it’s too big,” he told Space.com.
Astronomers predict that there are about 25,000 sizable objects that cross Earth’s orbit. Of those larger than 0.6 miles in diameter that could threaten civilization if they impacted, about 97% have been discovered. For smaller ones, 460 feet across or larger and that could do significant regional damage should they collide with Earth, an estimated 42% have been found so far. None have been found to be on a collision course with Earth, at least not in the next century or so.
In an attempt to speed things up, NASA plans to launch the NEO Surveyor mission no sooner than 2026. As an infrared space telescope, NEO Surveyor will search for and characterize all the dangerous asteroids and comets larger than 460 feet that venture within 30 million miles of Earth.
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NASA's DART asteroid-smashing mission spies on Jupiter and its moons (photos)Tereza is a London-based science and technology journalist, aspiring fiction writer and amateur gymnast. Originally from Prague, the Czech Republic, she spent the first seven years of her career working as a reporter, script-writer and presenter for various TV programmes of the Czech Public Service Television. She later took a career break to pursue further education and added a Master's in Science from the International Space University, France, to her Bachelor's in Journalism and Master's in Cultural Anthropology from Prague's Charles University. She worked as a reporter at the Engineering and Technology magazine, freelanced for a range of publications including Live Science, Space.com, Professional Engineering, Via Satellite and Space News and served as a maternity cover science editor at the European Space Agency.
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