Confirmed impact: NASA spacecraft crashes into an asteroid to deflect it

This Monday, September 26 at 6:14 pm (Peru time), a NASA spacecraft crashed into an asteroid. The DART mission has been the first planetary defense test in history and has tested the technology that we would use if, in the future, an asteroid threatens to fall to Earth and endanger humanity.

The objective of the DART spacecraft has been Dimorphos, an asteroid of 4,800 kilograms and 160 meters in diameter that orbits a larger one called Didymos. It has been the perfect moment for the mission since, today, Dimorphos reached its closest approach to the blue planet, being 11 million kilometers away.

This binary system of asteroids is considered close because it crosses the Earth’s orbit less than 150 million from Earth, but it does not represent any danger to our planet, NASA highlights.

The last moments before the crash were broadcast in real time by DRACO, a camera on board DART. Another spectator, 55 kilometers away, has been LICIACube, a minisatellite that traveled alongside the almost half-ton ship for almost 10 months, but was deployed on September 11.

After the impact, a group of astronomers will view Dimorphos through the four ground-based telescopes that make up the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) to ensure that it has changed its speed and orbit around Didymos. If your journey is altered by at least 73 seconds, the mission is successful.

Source-larepublica.pe