On Monday, NASA will attempt to smash its car-sized DART spacecraft into a non-threatening asteroid, in what is an important first test of a planetary defense strategy. There are a number of telescopes that will be watching the event. Tom Statler, DART program scientist, told reporters that they are moving an asteroid. He said it was kind of astonishing that they were doing that for the first time. The test at Didymos is the perfect natural laboratory for this double test. The Didymos asteroid system's smallest member, Dimorphos, is expected to be hit by the spaceship at 7:14 pm. On September 26th
The $308 million mission consists of two separate demonstrations. The first thing to do is build a spaceship that can slam into an asteroid. DART, weighing over 1,300 pounds and guided by a cutting-edge navigation system, will hopefully be able to do the job. The asteroid's response to the impact is one of the second tests. The question NASA scientists will be asking after the impact is "how effective did we move the asteroid and could we ever use this technology to move an asteroid?" Statler gave an explanation.
The DART will change Dimorphos's speed by 1%, which should change the moonlet's position. Scientists from the mission will use a host of tools to confirm the impact. Statler said we have to go to space to do these sorts of experiments in order to improve our models.
The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the tools that will be used. The instruments won't be able to observe the moment of impact, but they will be able to see the system after DART's demise. The Didymos system will be observed by Hubble and the second Sun-Earth lag point will be observed by the Webb telescope. The two space telescopes won't have a close-up view of Didymos because it's so far away.
The amount of dust kicked up by the impact is known as object brightening. Scientists can determine the consistency of Dimorphos's surface material by measuring the degree of brightening and the length of time the impact plume continues. The data will teach us more about asteroids, but it will also improve our simulations of impactors, as scientists work to develop an effective planetary defense strategy against threatening asteroids.
DART, short for NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, will attempt to change the trajectory of a non threatening asteroid. The test won't put our planet in danger. The Didymos system is being used as a kind of laboratory for the demonstration.
Didymos is 2,560 feet wide, while Dimorphos is 525 feet wide, which is close to two football fields. Didymoon is amorphosing every 11 hours. The moonlet is expected to be altered by several minutes due to DART.
The other craft with eyes on Didymos won't be the only ones. The Lucy probe, currently en route to Jupiter, will use its onboard LORRI instrument to gather data in the minutes after the impact. Lucy should be able to detect an object's brightness.
At the scene itself, DART's DRACO instrument will take one image per second as it zooms to its doom. The LICIACube was brought along for the ride because DART won't be there to document the aftermath. The probe was dispatched by DART a couple of weeks ago. After the encounter, LICIA will zip past Dimorphos.
The Italian Space Agency is working with us to get LICIA to within 25 to 50 miles of Dimorphos just two to three minutes after DART's impact.
The collision will be tracked by the Deep Space Network of NASA and the European Space Agency.
Each scientist wants to be the first to confirm a successful redirection of Dimorphos after the impact. He said it could take a few days or weeks to confirm the asteroid.
There is a chance that a dangerous object could show up from out of the blue. NASA and its international partners want to be prepared for this dire possibility and develop the means to shove asteroids from harm's way. DART is likely to be the first experiment to save civilization.
NASA has a mission to deflect an asteroid.
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