NASA's DART spacecraft will crash into an asteroid tonight in historic planetary defense test
Last edited Mon Sep 26, 2022, 07:37 PM - Edit history (2)
Source: Space.com
Brace for impact. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft is hurtling toward the asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos, and it'll reach its target tonight (Sept. 26). At 7:14 p.m. EDT (2314 GMT), if all goes well, DART will crash into Dimorphos in an attempt to alter the moonlet's trajectory. The mission is meant to test the theory that this technique could be used to divert an asteroid heading straight for Earth.
While neither Dimorphos nor Didymos pose a threat to our planet, and nothing that happens today can change that, the results of the DART mission will provide crucial data for scientists and engineers to develop plans for planetary defense. DART, which is managed for NASA by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL), marks the first-ever planetary defense test. You can watch the DART asteroid impact live online, courtesy of NASA, beginning at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT).
"This is an exciting time, not only for the agency but in space history and in the history of humankind, quite frankly," Lindley Johnson, NASA's planetary defense officer, said in a news conference held on Thursday (Sept. 22). "This demonstration is extremely important to our future here on Earth."
DART launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Nov. 23, 2021, and has since been traveling the 7 million miles (11 million kilometers) to Didymos and Dimorphos. As DART approaches Dimorphos, it will use its sole instrument, the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO), to autonomously navigate to its impact zone. Considering that scientists estimate Dimorphos has a diameter of just 560 feet (170 meters), that's no easy task.
Read more: https://www.space.com/nasa-dart-asteroid-impact-preview
NASA stream posted in Video & Multimedia (currently live at post time - https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017770677
Impact appeared to be successful. Did some screen captures of the approach -
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IMPACT SUCCESS! Watch from #DARTMIssion’s DRACO Camera, as the vending machine-sized spacecraft successfully collides with asteroid Dimorphos, which is the size of a football stadium and poses no threat to Earth.
7:19 PM · Sep 26, 2022
= new reply since forum marked as read
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LICIACube has now passed through the Didymos system and is continuing on in solar orbit. Its images of the impact will be downloaded in the coming hours
7:32 PM · Sep 26, 2022
They also said that they are supposed to be having the James Webb, Hubble, and Lucy (via a flyby) probes/instruments do some observations of the impact when possible.
