We don't know what Dimorphos looks like and we're going to smash it with a spaceship on Monday. One of the most metal science experiments of all time will take place when the Double Asteroid Redirection Test hits the asteroid.
If DART can change an asteroid's movement in space, it will be a success. It is being billed as the world's first "planetary defense test mission", a test run to see if we have what it takes to avoid a serious asteroid impact on Earth. Just incase.
Dimorphos and Didymos are not threats to Earth. We haven't found any asteroids that pose a threat to our planet. These two are excellent targets. Dimorphos and Didymos are a pair of asteroids. The smaller moonlet passes between the larger asteroid and Earth. telescopes on and off-world can watch the system and see what happens if a crash happens.
Telescopes on every continent will look at the system after the impact. Off-world, the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble, and even the asteroid-bound Lucy spacecraft will also train their gaze on the asteroid system.
Researchers say that the impact will change the speed of Dimorphos by a small amount. For planetary defense scientists those minutes are huge. Lindley Johnson, NASA's planetary defense officer, said at a press briefing that the demonstration was important to the future of the Earth.
The demonstration is very important to the future of the planet.
It is the first time in history that humans have both knowledge about the threat that asteroids pose and the technology to do something about it. If we ever detect a giant rock hurtling towards the planet, having a plan or two in place for how to stop it is a good thing.
DART is demonstrating a technique for changing the speed of an asteroid in space and changing it's position in the sky.
A gravity tractor is one of the options that can be used in planetary defense. It is possible to shoot an ion beam at an asteroid and push it to a different location. DART is going to crash into it full speed.
DART will be driving itself. Elena Adams, DART mission systems engineer at JohnHopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, said at the press conference that there will be about 44 people in a control room watching the data and data from the craft. It has a smart navigation system that leads it to the Didymos system. It spotted Didymos but won't be able to see Dimorphos until an hour before impact.
When it spots Dimorphos, it will only be a small object. The navigation system will be able to track the rock itself instead of the asteroid. Two and a half minutes before the impact, the navigation systems will switch off. We are going to point the camera at the asteroid and take the most amazing pictures of it.
It isn't every day that scientists get to crash a $250 million spaceship. The team will be documenting the collision in detail because it is a once-in-a- lifetime experience.
It isn't every day that scientists crash a $250 million spaceship.
In addition to the telescopes in space and on Earth that will be watching, DART's own camera will be sending back images until the last minute, so that people can watch as the mission ends.
A small craft will be documenting the action in space On September 11th, the Italian LICIACube was separated from the larger spacecraft after launching with DART. Three minutes after impact, it will fly by Dimorphos, documenting the experiment. The smaller craft will never get to see the other side of Dimorphos.
The mission is divided into two parts. The first part is hitting the asteroid and the second part is measuring what happens after that. The team expects the asteroid to run quickly after the collision.
It is the same if you dropped your watch. Tom Statler is a program scientist at DART. In the weeks and days and weeks to follow, you will notice that your watch is running fast, and we will notice that the asteroid system is running fast as well. Statler spoke.
It is similar to if you dropped your wristwatch.
One of the reasons for the test is that we don't know what will happen when we crash into an asteroid. Information about how the asteroid reacts to an impact could help calibrate future tests.
Statler hopes that the results of the experiment will surprise him. I don't want to be surprised.
The DART impact will be covered by NASA at 6PM on September 26th. It is expected to happen at 7:14PM. People can watch live coverage on NASA's website, as well as follow along on social media.
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