NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission successfully launched. The spacecraft for this mission will test technology to beat a dangerous asteroid from hitting and destroying Earth.
Quoted from the BBC, this spacecraft will crash into an object called Dimorphos to see how much its speed and path can be changed. To note, a chunk of cosmic debris measuring several hundred meters that collides with our planet can cause destruction throughout the Earth.
In this mission, the Falcon 9 rocket carrying the DART spacecraft launched at 06:20 GMT on Wednesday (24/11) from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, United States.
This is humanity's first attempt to deflect an asteroid with the aim of learning how to protect Earth, although this particular asteroid poses no threat.
"DART will only change the orbital period of Dimorphos by a small amount. And that's all that would be needed if the asteroid was discovered much earlier. "We're not out of trouble yet, we have to get out to Dimorphos. Still, it's a huge step forward," said Kelly Fast of NASA's office of planetary defense coordination.
Photo: NASA
Asteroids are remnants of the Solar System. In the very rare event that a space rock's path around the Sun crosses Earth so that both objects intersect at the same time, a collision can occur.
The $325 million DART mission will target a pair of asteroids orbiting close to each other known as a binary. The larger of the two objects, called Didymos, measures about 780 meters, while its smaller companion, Dimorphos, is about 160 meters wide.
An object the size of a Dimorphos can explode with energy many times that of a regular nuclear bomb, destroying populated areas and causing tens of thousands of casualties. While asteroids with a diameter of 300 meters and larger, can cause destruction across continents, and those larger than 1 km will impact the entire Earth.