The DART probe rammed its first asteroid. This is a program to protect the planet
The DART space probe crashed into its first asteroid as part of testing the Earth's defense system. This is the 160-meter Dimorph asteroid from the binary system. The probe was supposed to leave a crater on it and change the rotation period of Dimorph around its neighboring asteroid Didyma. The broadcast is available on the NASA YouTube channel.
The DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission went into space in November 2021 in order to test the possibility of protecting the Earth from potentially dangerous asteroids. And today at 2:15 a.m. Kyiv time, the probe rammed its first target — the Dimorph asteroid with a diameter of 160 meters. The 570-kilogram DART crashed into the asteroid at a speed of 22,530 kilometers per hour in order to change its orbit. Observations of the asteroid's satellite Didymus will tell whether he succeeded in this in a few weeks - thanks to DART, Dimorph should reduce its period of rotation around it by 10 minutes.
The system is at a distance of 11 million kilometers from Earth, but it is not dangerous. It is expected that DART left a crater on Dimorpha, and this can be verified by the LICIACube cubesat, which is supposed to fly past the asteroid and take pictures of its surface.
Share the news
