American space agency Nasa is preparing a mission to deliberately smash a spacecraft into an asteroid. The DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) will be real proof-of-concept experiment, should humanity ever need to stop a giant space rock from wiping out life on Earth.
The mission will blasting off at 10:21pm Pacific Time on Tuesday (11.51am IST on Wednesday) aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from California. SpaceX said a backup opportunity is available around the same time on Wednesday (which will push the launch to same time in India on Thursday).
“What we’re trying to learn is how to deflect a threat,” Nasa’s top scientist Thomas Zuburchen said of the $330 million project.
What is the target?
The mission’s goal is a small “moonlet” called Dimorphos. It is around 525 feet (or two Statues of Liberty) wide that is circling a much larger asteroid called Didymos. The pair orbit the Sun together.
The scientists have said that both the celestial bodies pose no threat to our planet.
When will the impact take place?
According to Nasa’s planetary defense coordination office, the impact is expected to take place in the fall of next year – between September 26 and October 1, 2022. The asteroid system will be is 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometres) from Earth at that time, almost the nearest point they ever get.
There is some uncertainty about how much energy will be transferred by the impact, because the moonlet’s internal composition and porosity are not known.
The size of DART probe
Nasa said that the space mission is a box the size of a large fridge with limousine-sized solar panels on either side., It will slam into Dimorphos at just over 15,000 miles an hour (or 24,140 kmph).
The current orbital period is 11 hours and 55 minutes, and the team expects the kick will shave around 10 minutes off that time.
“Ideal natural laboratory”
Scientists have been creating miniature impacts in labs, but now want to test it out in the real scenario. They say that models are always inferior to real world tests.
The Didymos-Dimorphos system is an “ideal natural laboratory”, said Nasa scientists because Earth-based telescopes can easily measure the brightness variation of the pair and judge the time it takes the moonlet to orbit its big brother.
