NASA will undertake a mission to purposely collide a spacecraft with an asteroid to alter its orbit. It could be considered the first incidence of humans interfering with the solar system’s gravitational dance.
The agency will carry out the mission on Wednesday. The mission’s goal is to put a planetary defense system to the test. NASA will intentionally collide its spacecraft into an asteroid. It is to see if it can save the planet from extinction.
It will also provide the first solid data on what requires to deflect an asteroid capable of causing Armageddon away from Earth.
The NASA DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission is its first attempt. It is to see if asteroid deflection is a viable option. It will investigate if a spacecraft can navigate independently to a target asteroid and also purposefully collide with it. Also, to measure the amount of deflection.
Then on Wednesday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the 610 kilogram DART spacecraft from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
The Didymos system is a harmless pair of asteroids. It likewise consists of a 163-meter “moonlet” asteroid named Dimorphos orbiting a bigger 780-meter asteroid named Didymos, is its target.
Jay Tate, director of National Near Earth Objects Information Centre in Knighton in Powys, Wales, said; “This is the first step to actually try a way of preventing near-Earth object impact. If it works, it would be a big deal, because it would prove that we have the technical capability of protecting ourselves.”