Rather than being a catastrophic error, however, it will be the first test of a way to protect Earth from killer asteroids. So while this may be one small step towards planetary protection, many more are likely to be necessary to avoid Armageddon.NASA has just launched a multimillion-dollar spacecraft - to slam into an asteroid. What you need is a whole folder of different deflection methods for different types of target.” “The problem is that no two asteroids or comets are alike, and how you deflect one depends on a huge number of variables: what’s the thing’s made of, how it’s put together, how fast it’s spinning, and of course how much time you’ve got. “Assuming it works, will provide us with real time ground truths on the effects of a small impactor on a small asteroid,” said Tate. Such details are vital for transforming asteroid deflection into a scalable and repeatable technique, that could be deployed should an apocalyptic asteroid ever be detected heading towards Earth.Įven then, it is unlikely that any single deflection strategy would be enough. Then, in November 2024, the European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft will visit the Didymos system and conduct a further close-up analysis of the consequences of this celestial snooker game, capturing details such as the precise mass, makeup and internal structure of Dimorphos, and the size and shape of the crater left by Dart.

The expectation is that it will change the speed of the smaller asteroid by a fraction of 1% and alter its orbital period around the larger asteroid by several minutes. Combined with observations from ground-based telescopes, and an onboard camera that will capture the final moments before collision, these recordings should enable scientists to calculate the degree to which the impact has altered Dimorphos’s orbit. The plan is to crash the spacecraft into Dimorphos when the asteroid system is at its closest – about 6.8m miles away – some time between 26 September and 1 October 2022.Ībout 10 days before impact, a miniaturised satellite called the Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube), will separate from the main spacecraft, enabling images of the impact to be relayed back to Earth. Its target is the Didymos system – a harmless pair of asteroids consisting of a 163-metre “moonlet” asteroid called Dimorphos that orbits a larger 780-metre asteroid called Didymos – after the Greek for “twin”).Īs they orbit the sun, these asteroids occasionally pass relatively close to Earth. The 610kg Dart spacecraft is scheduled to blast off from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at about 6.21am UK time on Wednesday. Someday, something similar could call time on humanity’s reign – unless we can find a way to deflect it. About 66m years ago, one such collision is thought to have ended the reign of the dinosaurs, ejecting vast amounts of dust and debris into the upper atmosphere, which obscured the sun and caused food chains to collapse. Once in a while, however, something large enough to do significant damage hits the ground. Our planet is constantly being bombarded with small pieces of debris, but these are usually burned or broken up long before they hit the ground. The aim is to test drive a planetary defence system that could prevent us from going the same way as the dinosaurs, providing the first real data about what it would take to deflect an Armageddon-inducing asteroid away from Earth. On Wednesday, Nasa will launch a mission to deliberately slam a spacecraft into an asteroid to try to alter its orbit – the first time humanity has tried to interfere in the gravitational dance of the solar system.

That’s one large rock, one momentous shift in our relationship with space.

Asteroids earth nasa