- The project is called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), and it is expected to end in September.
- China Prepares A Defense System Against Asteroids That Threaten The Earth
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| NASA's DART mission, as soon as it took off. / Pixabay |
One of the most recurring plots in catastrophe and science fiction movies is an eventual crash of an asteroid against the surface of the Earth. Although it is unlikely, NASA has foreseen any eventuality and already has a plan to avoid it.
The US space agency's solution is to launch a spacecraft against the asteroid to divert its trajectory. The project is called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), and it is expected to end in September, when a projectile, launched last November, collides with the asteroid Dimorphous.
The mission's brainchild, Andy Cheng, chief scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, has spoken to the Financial Times about the mission.
"It's very exciting, like a dream come true, that something we've been thinking about for 20 years is happening," Cheng told the economic daily.
Cheng speculated that the DART impact could alter the asteroid's shape. Fortunately, none of the roughly 27,000 identified "near-Earth objects" are thought to carry a significant risk to our planet.
However, the findings from the DART mission could provide invaluable information if a threat were to emerge. Cheng said: "In an extreme emergency, we could take a spacecraft that is being built for another purpose, add a new guidance system and send it to hit the asteroid. We may need more than one spacecraft."
NASA is tracking the mission in real-time on the Internet, complete with a clock. According to the organization, "DART is the first mission dedicated to investigating and demonstrating an asteroid deflection method by changing an asteroid's motion in space through kinetic impact."