DAccording to the US space agency Nasa, the first intentionally caused collision of a spacecraft with an asteroid was a success: The impact of the Dart probe in September reduced the orbit of the asteroid moon Dimorphos, said Nasa boss Bill Nelson on Tuesday.
While it used to take Dimorphos eleven hours and 55 minutes to orbit its big brother Didymos, it now takes eleven hours and 23 minutes. “This mission shows that NASA is trying to be prepared for whatever the universe throws at us,” said the agency’s director, Bill Nelson. “I think NASA has proven that we mean business as defenders of our planet.”
Strategy to defend the earth
The experiment took place around 11 million kilometers from Earth. The 750-kilogram “Dart” spacecraft crashed directly into Dimorphos and self-destructed in the process.
The mission’s goal was to test a strategy for defending Earth against threatening objects from space. However, the 160 meter wide asteroid did not pose a threat to Earth.
The successful deflection of orbit by “Dart” proves that Earth could be protected in the event of an Earth-proximity object, provided the deflection mission is initiated early enough and the target is not too large. “The advance warning time is really critical here so that this type of asteroid deflection can be used in the future as part of a much larger planetary defense strategy,” Nelson said.
