He added that the goal is to ensure that humanity is able to deviate the path of asteroids in the future if they are heading towards planet Earth, adding that the mission will obtain more detailed information about the surface of the asteroid.
He pointed out that the spacecraft will send images until the collision with the asteroid occurs, and since the spacecraft will disintegrate, there will be no documentation of the process of diverting the path. "But there is a satellite that will continue to photograph the asteroid Demorphos from afar".
Mission objective
For his part, the Director of Astronomy of the International Astronomy Center, Muhammad Shawkat Odeh, said that this experiment was carefully chosen, so that the spacecraft collides with a small asteroid orbiting a larger asteroid.
He added in an interview with "Sky News Arabia"، "For us on Earth, when we normally observe asteroids, we have what is called the light curve, and therefore, towards this double asteroid, i.e. the small in front of the big one, we will notice from the ground-based observatories the difference in the illumination coming from the two planets".
Odeh added that the goal of the mission is to open the door to protecting the Earth from the dangers of potential asteroids falling that may be on their way to the planet in which we live.
The probe took a period of 10 months to reach the asteroid, and the collision will occur at dawn on Tuesday, September 27 at 03:13 am UAE time, and the speed of the probe at the moment of collision will be 22,000 kilometers per hour, and then the asteroid will be 11 million kilometers from Earth.
The diameter of the small asteroid is 100 times the diameter of the probe, and it is expected that the speed of the asteroid will change by only 0.1%, and the asteroid is now shining by 14.5. It is not possible to be certain what we will see from Earth at the time of the collision. Scientists will need several days or weeks after the collision to monitor and study the movement of the new small asteroid to know whether the experiment is successful or not.
And he said " The International Astronomy Center contacted the supervisor of this mission to make the Astronomical Seal Observatory one of the global observatories that participate in the photometric analysis of the asteroid after the collision to assess the success of the experiment. Indeed, the participation of the observatory as one of the participating observatories from the UAE has been accepted. After that, photometric observations are made and shared with the mission supervisors, and the collision can be followed live on NASA TV.".
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If this scientific initiative called “DART” succeeds, this will be a sign of humanity’s ability in the future to avoid dangerous asteroids from colliding with the planet.
Speaking about the process, Professor Jay McMahan, a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Colorado, says that Dart’s bet is to understand the possible way to distort the path of an asteroid “in case we need to in the future.”
The researcher involved in the project said in an interview with “Sky News Arabia”, “We are confident of the success of the mission,” explaining that it is unlikely that this asteroid, which does not pose a danger on Earth, be mistaken, but will be subject to path distortion, in an experimental framework only.
He added that the goal is to ensure that humanity is able to deviate the path of asteroids in the future if they are heading towards planet Earth, adding that the mission will obtain more detailed information about the surface of the asteroid.
He pointed out that the spacecraft will send images until the collision with the asteroid occurs, and since the spacecraft will disintegrate, there will be no documentation of the process of diverting the path, “but there is a satellite that will continue to photograph the asteroid Demorphos from afar.”
Mission objective
For his part, the Director of Astronomy of the International Astronomy Center, Muhammad Shawkat Odeh, said that this experiment was carefully chosen, so that the spacecraft collides with a small asteroid orbiting a larger asteroid.
He added in an interview with “Sky News Arabia”, “For us on Earth, when we, in normal conditions, monitor asteroids, we have a so-called light curve, and therefore, in the face of this double asteroid, that is, the small in front of the large, we will notice from ground-based observatories the difference in illumination. coming from both planets.
Odeh added that the goal of the mission is to open the door to protecting the Earth from the dangers of potential asteroids falling that may be on their way to the planet in which we live.
The probe took a period of 10 months to reach the asteroid, and the collision will occur at dawn on Tuesday, September 27 at 03:13 am UAE time, and the speed of the probe at the moment of collision will be 22,000 kilometers per hour, and then the asteroid will be 11 million kilometers from Earth.
The diameter of the small asteroid is 100 times the diameter of the probe, and it is expected that the speed of the asteroid will change by only 0.1%, and the asteroid is now shining by 14.5. It is not possible to be certain what we will see from Earth at the time of the collision. Scientists will need several days or weeks after the collision to monitor and study the movement of the new small asteroid to know whether the experiment is successful or not.
He said, “The International Astronomy Center contacted the supervisor of this mission to make the Astronomical Seal Observatory one of the global observatories that participate in the photometric analysis of the asteroid after the collision to assess the success of the experiment. Indeed, the participation of the observatory was accepted as one of the participating observatories from the UAE. The Astronomical Seal Observatory will monitor the asteroid for a moment.” The collision, in addition to making photometric observations afterwards, and sharing them with the mission supervisors, and the collision can be followed live on NASA TV.”