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NASA crashes a probe into an asteroid — on purpose

MARCIA DUNN

A NASA spacecraft rammed an asteroid at blistering speed Monday in an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock menaces Earth.

The galactic slam occurred at a harmless asteroid 11.3 million kilometres away, with the spacecraft named Dart plowing into the space rock at 22,500 km/h.

Scientists expected the impact to carve out a crater, hurl streams of rocks and dirt into space and, most importantly, alter the asteroid’s orbit.

“We have impact!” Mission Control’s Elena Adams announced, jumping up and down and thrusting her arms skyward.

Telescopes around the world and in space aimed at the same point in the sky to capture the spectacle. Though the impact was immediately obvious — Dart’s radio signal abruptly ceased — it will be days or even weeks to determine how much the asteroid’s path was changed.

The $325-million (U.S.) mission was the first attempt to shift the position of an asteroid or any other natural object in space.

“We’re embarking on a new era of humankind,” said NASA’s Lori Glaze, planetary science division director.

Earlier in the day, NASA administrator Bill Nelson reminded people via Twitter that, “No, this is not a movie plot.” He added in a pre-recorded video: “We’ve all seen it on movies like ‘Armageddon,’ but the real-life stakes are high.”

Monday’s target: a 160-metre asteroid named Dimorphos. It’s actually a moonlet of Didymos, Greek for twin, a fast-spinning asteroid five times bigger that flung off the material that formed the junior partner.

The pair have been orbiting the sun for eons without threatening Earth, making them ideal save-the-world test candidates.

Launched last November, the vending machine-size Dart — short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test — navigated to its target using new technology developed by Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, the spacecraft builder and mission manager.

Dart’s on-board camera, a key part of this smart navigation system, caught sight of Dimorphos barely an hour before impact.

“Woo hoo,” exclaimed Adams, a mission systems engineer at Johns Hopkins. “We’re seeing Dimorphos, so wonderful, wonderful.”

NEWS

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2022-09-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-09-27T07:00:00.0000000Z

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