Sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid struck Earth. Yesterday, NASA struck back.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft collided with the asteroid Dimorphos to determine how much the collision would affect the asteroid’s orbit. While Dimorphos poses no threat to the Earth, this mission is a study to test out a technique for diverting the course of an asteroid hurtling toward our planet.
The spacecraft smashed into Dimorphos at 7.14pm EDT, some 6.8 million miles from Earth and traveling at 15,000 mph.The asteroid is about 560 feet in diameter, which means it could easily fit into the dish of the Arecibo Observatory (1000-ft diameter). It is part of a binary asteroid system–it revolves around its larger neighbor, Didymos (Greek for ‘twin’). The asteroid Didymos was discovered by Kitt Peak National Observatory in 1996, and confirmed to be a binary system by the Arecibo Observatory in 2003.
The DART spacecraft locked on to its target right on cue, and its onboard camera showed the view as it sped toward impact. For those watching the event live, it was astounding to see the boulders and rocks of the asteroid come clearly into view minutes before the crash.
Teams of NASA and Johns Hopkins University scientists hugged each other and cheered as DART’s successful impact with Dimorphos was confirmed . The impact was observable from Earth, and now astronomers around the world will contribute to the study of the after-effects of the impact.
A “smashing” success!
