The goal is to understand if it is possible to change the course of a body directed towards the Earth
LaPresse / AP / CorriereTv
(LaPresse) As in the best Hollywood films, NASA is preparing to save the Earth from a possible impact with an asteroid. The American space agency is in fact about to launch a test, the first of its kind, which aims to understand whether by crashing a spacecraft into a celestial body it is possible in this way to divert its path. “If we look at the Moon and the Earth we see that they are full of craters, which means that the impacts of small objects are normal in very long periods of time,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA. The Dart spacecraft, which means Double Asteroid Redirection Test, will depart from a Californian base on Wednesday, November 24, on a SpaceX rocket. The chosen target is the double asteroid Didymos and in particular its moon, about 160 meters wide. Very small considering that the asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs measured about 10 kilometers. The arrival of the crashing impactor device is expected between late September and early October 2022. The impact on the minor satellite will occur at a speed of approximately 6.6 km per second and scientists hope it will be able to change the speed of the moon’s orbit around its main body. A minimal variation but capable of altering its period of revolution by several minutes. It is hoped that the test will one day save Earth from a collision course asteroid.
November 23, 2021 – Updated November 23, 2021, 3:31 pm
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