Crashing a NASA satellite into an asteroid does not threaten Earth

UPDATE (09/26/22): NASA expects the DART PC satellite TV, which it is testing to crash into an asteroid, will hit its target sometime on 9/26 . The target asteroid was orbiting another, larger asteroid, and NASA didn’t hit the target asteroid with a satellite TV big enough for a computer to knock it out of orbit. This unique story explains why NASA chose to target the asteroid, and why the observation poses no threat to Earth, as originally revealed.

On Nov. 23, NASA launched its satellite TV for the Double Asteroid Redirection Examination (DART), a mission in which NASA slammed a personal computer satellite TV into an asteroid to redirect its orbit to test its ability to protect Earth from harmful asteroids.

The asteroids they used to observe were asteroids that weren’t expected to return anywhere near Earth.However some viewers worry Check out this one that could inadvertently change the path of an asteroid into Earth.

Would NASA consider diverting an asteroid to pose a threat to Earth?

No, this look is not a threat to the planet. NASA’s observations took place on an asteroid orbiting another, larger asteroid, and NASA’s satellite TV was used to check if it couldn’t knock the target asteroid out of the orbit of the larger asteroid.

DART is a satellite television for pc designed to protect the planet, research applied science that might stop harmful asteroids from hitting Earth. NASA said. NASA’s mission on this mission is to smash its satellite TV into the asteroid to trigger a measurable change in its motion. DART should hit the asteroid in late September or early October 2022.

“We’re just trying to control the motion of this asteroid so that we can measure it with telescopes on Earth to get the basic ground truth for our theoretical models,” said Dr. Tom Statler, project scientist on the DART mission. “And to understand how we’re going to use it if we go straight to a state, we have to apply it to a harmful actual asteroid.”

Not only will the mission help them figure out how much an impression can affect the asteroid’s motion, but it must also get scientists to better think about where in the asteroid’s orbit is the most efficient place to hit it, each way Statler That impression is important in addition to being from the most accessible places on Earth, say.

NASA said its target asteroid would not pose a threat to Earth, and everyone on the mission was convinced it would not pose a threat even after the impression. According to Statler, there are many explanations for why a look isn’t a threat to Earth.

“Even if DART affects the asteroid at a great rate, it’s only the mass of a cow,” Statler said. “Compared to the mass of the asteroid, DART is not enough to alter the asteroid’s orbit enough to pose a threat to Earth.” It simply doesn’t happen. “

The asteroids DART focused on are smaller asteroids called Dimorphos in a two-asteroid system at the Johns Hopkins Utilization Physics Laboratory (APL), which is being studied in partnership with NASA. Dimorphos orbit a larger asteroid called Didymos, which in turn orbits the sun.

“Even though DART gives Dimorphos a bigger boost than expected, it’s still on track around Didymos,” Statler said.

This also provides a measure for NASA. According to APL, the DART impression should reduce the time it takes Dimorphos to run around Didymos by minutes.

Scientists have a solid understanding of how asteroid orbits work. “It takes a certain number of knowledge statements to determine what that orbit is,” Statler explained. “But once we bought it, we pretty much nailed it. We all knew where it was.”

NASA says there is no recognized asteroid of the same or larger size as Dimorphos that has a good chance of hitting Earth within the next 100 years. Still, only about 40 percent of such asteroids have been discovered, according to NASA.

“You probably can’t deflect the asteroid unless you know it’s there,” Statler said. “So the key element of what we’re doing in planetary conservation is still looking for asteroids, finding asteroids, observing them, determining their orbits and predicting what they’re going to do sooner or later. We’re not done, no doubt.”

Extra from VERIFY: Of course, the images of the North Pole then and now are real, but it’s not 100-year comparability