(Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben)ĭidymos and Dimorphos were discovered in 19 respectively and are the first binary asteroid system to be studied in detail. First, the moonlet is part of a binary system and orbits its parent once every 11 hours and 55 minutes, a short enough time that any change in its orbit should be apparent in ground-based telescopes in follow-up observations.Īn artist's depiction of the DART spacecraft approaching the asteroid Dimorphos. NASA picked Dimorphos, a moonlet of Didymos, for the DART impact for a few reasons. "We're really excited every time our space missions protect life on Earth," Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's associate administrator for science, told this morning.
That mission could launch by 2026.īut humanity also needs to have methods to deflect a hazardous asteroid should one be detected. NASA is also developing a new space telescope sentinel called the Near Earth Object Surveyor specifically designed to seek out hazardous asteroids in the solar system. NASA has found about 40% of the large asteroids as wide as 500 feet (140 meters) that could pose a threat to the Earth and regularly scans the sky for more. The risk of a catastrophic asteroid impact on Earth is remote, but real, NASA scientists have said. "This is stuff of science fiction books and really corny episodes of ' Star Trek' from when I was a kid, and now it's real." Humanity has never done that before," said Tom Statler, NASA's DART program scientist. "We are changing the motion of a natural celestial body in space. It's a basic method to protect the Earth if a potentially dangerous asteroid were spotted five or 10 years before a prospective impact. The DART mission is the first demonstration of what NASA calls a "kinetic impactor" for planetary defense: crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid to change its orbit. (Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL) A spacecraft crash for planetary defense "I'm kind of surprised none of us passed out."ĭART's view of Didymos and Dimorphos about 20 minutes before impact on Sept. "I think all of us were kind of holding our breath," Adams said, adding that it was like feeling "terror and joy" at the same time. Then, right on time, the live feed from DART went black and flight controllers inside DART's mission operations center jumped for joy and traded hugs and high fives in a triumphant celebration. 23, 2021.Īs DART closed in on Dimorphos, the asteroid transformed from a mysterious bright dot into a detailed landscape of boulders, crags and shadowed terrain. The $313 million DART mission launched on Nov. He came up with the DART mission's concept in 2011. "It's nerve-wracking," Andy Cheng, chief scientist for planetary defense at JHUAPL, said of the final days before the crash. DART's main camera beamed a photo to Earth every second until the feed went black as the spacecraft crashed into the asteroid. Much of DART's last four hours were automated, with the spacecraft's navigation system locking on to Dimorphos in the final hour of its approach. Nothing went wrong during the crash, so engineers didn't have to try one of the 21 different contingency plans they had in their hip pocket. "Sometimes, we describe it as running a golf cart into the Great Pyramid."ĭespite the on-target crash, there was a mix of calm and anticipation at DART's mission control center at JHUAPL as the spacecraft sped towards its destruction.
"The spacecraft is very small," said planetary scientist Nancy Chabot, DART coordination lead at JHUAPL, which oversees the mission for NASA, before the impact. The spacecraft wasn't large as probes go, but NASA hoped that its 1,320 pounds (600 kilograms) would be enough to move the 534-foot-wide (163 meters) Dimorphos a bit faster in its orbit around its parent. The golf cart-sized DART spacecraft slammed into Dimorphos at 7:14 p.m. DART's view of Dimorphos less than two minutes before impact on Sept.
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