NASA’s Dual Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) aims to collide with the asteroid moon Dimorphos on Monday night, hoping to slightly alter its orbit – the first time such an operation has been attempted. While Dimorph is 11 million kilometers (6.8 million miles) away and poses no threat to Earth, the mission is a test run in case the world someday needs to deflect an asteroid from heading our way. Astronomers around the world will monitor DART’s impact and its impact will be closely monitored to see if the mission passes the test. The European Space Agency’s Hera mission, named after the ancient Greek queen of the gods, will follow in her footsteps. The Hera spacecraft is planned to launch in October 2024, with the goal of reaching Dimorphos in 2026 to measure the exact impact DART had on the asteroid. Scientists are not only excited to see the DART crater, but also to explore an object far out of this world.
“A New World”
Dimorphos, which orbits a larger Gemini asteroid as they orbit together in space, provides not only a “perfect testing opportunity for a planetary defense experiment, but it’s also a completely new environment,” said Hera mission director Ian Carnelli. Hera will be loaded with cameras, spectrometers, radar and even toaster-sized nanosatellites to measure the asteroid’s shape, mass, chemical composition and more. NASA’s Bhavya Lal said it is extremely important to understand the size and composition of such asteroids. “If an asteroid consists of, for example, loose gravel, the approaches to breaking it up may be different than if it were metal or some other kind of rock,” he told the International Astronautical Congress in Paris this week. So little is known about Dimorphos that scientists will discover “a new world” at the same time as the public on Monday, Hera mission principal investigator Patrick Michel said. “Asteroids aren’t boring space rocks — they’re extremely fascinating because they’re so diverse” in size, shape and composition, Michel said. Because they have low gravity compared to Earth, the matter there could behave quite differently than expected. “Unless you touch the surface, you can’t know the mechanical response,” he said.
“It behaved almost like a liquid”
For example, when a Japanese probe dropped a small explosive near the surface of asteroid Ryugu in 2019, it was expected to create a two- to three-meter crater. Instead, he blew a 50-meter hole. “There was no resistance,” Michel said. “The surface behaved almost like a fluid [rather than solid rock]. How weird is that?’ One way the Hera mission will test Dimorphos will be to land a nano-satellite on its surface, in part to see how it bounces. Binary systems like Dimorph and Gemini account for about 15 percent of known asteroids, but they have yet to be explored. At just 160 meters in diameter – about the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza – Dimorphos will also be the smallest asteroid ever studied. Learning about DART’s impact is not only important for planetary defense, Michel said, but also for understanding the history of our solar system, where most cosmic bodies formed through collisions and are now full of craters. There DART and Hera could shed light not only on the future but also on the past. This computer generated image shows the impact of the DART missile in the binary system of asteroids Gemini [European Space Agency via AFP]
title: " Planetary Defense Nasa Targets Asteroids In Space Collision Space News " ShowToc: true date: “2022-10-26” author: “Justin Stewart”
NASA’s Dual Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) aims to collide with the asteroid moon Dimorphos on Monday night, hoping to slightly alter its orbit – the first time such an operation has been attempted. While Dimorph is 11 million kilometers (6.8 million miles) away and poses no threat to Earth, the mission is a test run in case the world someday needs to deflect an asteroid from heading our way. Astronomers around the world will monitor DART’s impact and its impact will be closely monitored to see if the mission passes the test. The European Space Agency’s Hera mission, named after the ancient Greek queen of the gods, will follow in her footsteps. The Hera spacecraft is planned to launch in October 2024, with the goal of reaching Dimorphos in 2026 to measure the exact impact DART had on the asteroid. Scientists are not only excited to see the DART crater, but also to explore an object far out of this world.
“A New World”
Dimorphos, which orbits a larger Gemini asteroid as they orbit together in space, provides not only a “perfect testing opportunity for a planetary defense experiment, but it’s also a completely new environment,” said Hera mission director Ian Carnelli. Hera will be loaded with cameras, spectrometers, radar and even toaster-sized nanosatellites to measure the asteroid’s shape, mass, chemical composition and more. NASA’s Bhavya Lal said it is extremely important to understand the size and composition of such asteroids. “If an asteroid consists of, for example, loose gravel, the approaches to breaking it up may be different than if it were metal or some other kind of rock,” he told the International Astronautical Congress in Paris this week. So little is known about Dimorphos that scientists will discover “a new world” at the same time as the public on Monday, Hera mission principal investigator Patrick Michel said. “Asteroids aren’t boring space rocks — they’re extremely fascinating because they’re so diverse” in size, shape and composition, Michel said. Because they have low gravity compared to Earth, the matter there could behave quite differently than expected. “Unless you touch the surface, you can’t know the mechanical response,” he said.
“It behaved almost like a liquid”
For example, when a Japanese probe dropped a small explosive near the surface of asteroid Ryugu in 2019, it was expected to create a two- to three-meter crater. Instead, he blew a 50-meter hole. “There was no resistance,” Michel said. “The surface behaved almost like a fluid [rather than solid rock]. How weird is that?’ One way the Hera mission will test Dimorphos will be to land a nano-satellite on its surface, in part to see how it bounces. Binary systems like Dimorph and Gemini account for about 15 percent of known asteroids, but they have yet to be explored. At just 160 meters in diameter – about the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza – Dimorphos will also be the smallest asteroid ever studied. Learning about DART’s impact is not only important for planetary defense, Michel said, but also for understanding the history of our solar system, where most cosmic bodies formed through collisions and are now full of craters. There DART and Hera could shed light not only on the future but also on the past. This computer generated image shows the impact of the DART missile in the binary system of asteroids Gemini [European Space Agency via AFP]
