Behold, The Epic Last Images Taken by NASA's Asteroid Redirection Test Spacecraft

  • 📰 ScienceAlert
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 29 sec. here
  • 2 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 15%
  • Publisher: 68%

United States News News

United States Latest News,United States Headlines

Bullseye: A NASA spaceship on Monday struck an asteroid 7 million miles away in order to deflect its orbit, succeeding in a historic test of humanity's ability to prevent a celestial object from devastating life on Earth.

DART's final look at the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos captured 1 second before impact. Impact occurred during transmission of the image to Earth, resulting in a partial picture. Minutes after impact, a toaster-sized satellite called LICIACube, which already separated from DART a few weeks ago, was expected to make a close pass of the site to capture images of the collision and the ejecta – the pulverized rock thrown off by the strike.

Finally, a full picture of what the system looks like will be revealed when a European Space Agency mission four years down the line called Hera arrives to survey Dimorphos' surface and measure its mass, which scientists can currently only guess at.Very few of the billions of asteroids and comets in our solar system are considered potentially hazardous to our planet, and none are expected in the next hundred years or so.

If it had missed, NASA would have another shot in two years' time, with the spaceship containing just enough fuel for another pass.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.

miss the little guy don't know where he wandered off

I have a feeling this thing was too porous to do much nudging, looked more like a pile of gravel and dust. Hard to tell the scale in images, hopefully there'll be more high res versions. Pretty happy there was nothing running around on it though, I hope.

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 63. in US

United States Latest News, United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

NASA DART craft successfully hits asteroid, could help defend Earth against future impactScientists want to know if a spacecraft can deflect an asteroid for planetary defense. The asteroid poses no threat to Earth.
Source: 10News - 🏆 732. / 50 Read more »

NASA Slams Spacecraft Into Asteroid to Test Earth Saving TechA NASA mission known as DART slammed into an asteroid just moments ago, in a test of tech to defect a killer asteroid from Earth. Nice. Next mission. DARTMission
Source: futurism - 🏆 85. / 68 Read more »

'Climate Change Is the Asteroid,' Say Critics of NASA Earth Defense Mission'The actual clear and present danger to humanity is of course Earth breakdown from burning fossil fuels,' not an asteroid, says NASA climate scientist ClimateHuman.
Source: commondreams - 🏆 530. / 51 Read more »

NASA successfully smashes spacecraft into asteroid 7 million miles from Earth
Source: WOKVNews - 🏆 247. / 63 Read more »

NASA spacecraft will slam into an asteroid Monday — if all goes rightIf everything goes as planned, and the laws of gravity and motion don’t change at the last minute, the asteroid collision will happen on Monday at exactly 7:14:23 EST. حدیث_نجفی IranRevolution Iranianwomen MahsaAmini EDT Just don't get and lefties involved, they'll be upset that they can't change science again
Source: washingtonpost - 🏆 95. / 72 Read more »

NASA spacecraft to collide with asteroid Monday to test Earth's defensesIt may sound like the plot of a Hollywood movie, but NASA will intentionally crash into an asteroid on Monday to test its ability to save Earth from a hypothetical future disaster.
Source: HoustonChron - 🏆 609. / 51 Read more »