A NASA spacecraft collided with tremendous speed and force into an asteroid yesterday to divert it from its orbit and prevent a threat of collision with Earth.
At the Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, it is reported that the asteroid was 11.3 million km from Earth, and the spacecraft DART crashed into it at a speed of 22,500 km/h. The scientists expect the “violent” collision to create a volcano-like crater on the asteroid and launch clouds of dust, stones and rocks into space.
Telescopes all over the world followed the unprecedented experiment yesterday. The spacecraft’s radio transmissions stopped at the moment of the collision, and it is said that it will only be possible to know in about two months if the asteroid has indeed changed its course and does not threaten the Earth.
The experiment, which costs 325 million dollars, is the first to try to change the trajectory of a space body in this way. NASA experiment manager Elena Adams told the agency AP Because as far as we can tell, the experiment was successful and “the inhabitants of the earth can sleep peacefully”.
The asteroid in question, named Dimphorus, is 160 meters long and has so far circled the sun. Dart is a spaceship the size of a candy vending machine, equipped with cameras and a sophisticated navigation system to reach the asteroid. The spacecraft “captured” the asteroid about an hour before the planned collision. The telescopes saw the spaceship approaching the body of the spaceship at a tremendous speed, the image of the asteroid grew larger and larger in the camera lenses, until the collision occurred and the radio broadcasts and photographs went silent.
In the center of the space there was applause and voices of joy at the success of the experiment.