This year saw the first ever test of Earth's planetary defences, with NASA smashing its DART spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos to divert its course. Thankfully, we were never in danger, but one day, who knows?
On 26 September, after travelling 11 million kilometres from Earth in nine months, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test craft
. The goal was to see if we could change an asteroid’s path by flying a probe into it – and it was an unmitigated success.Dimorphos is a small moonlet that orbits a larger asteroid called Didymos. Before the impact, Dimorphos circled Didymos once every 11 hours and 55 minutes. The crash moved it slightly closer and now an orbit takes only 11 hours and 23 minutes.
While Dimorphos and Didymos pose no danger to Earth, this success demonstrates that if we were to spot an asteroid heading our way, crashing a spacecraft into it might shift its trajectory by just enough to make it miss Earth. Figuring out exactly what happened within the asteroid when DART hit it will help us design those potential future missions to keep our planet as safe as possible.More on these topics:
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