Tomorrow, space probe "Dart" will take off. - NASA fires at asteroids using a weapon
Next Wednesday, on November 24th at 7:21 a.m., the Dart space probe will be sent into the cosmos aboard a Falcon 9 rocket taking off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. This 500-kilogram craft is heading right for a rock.
Its target? The double asteroid Didymos, consisting of an 800-meter-wide main body and a smaller moon, Didymoon, with a 160-meter diameter. In late 2022, Dart will slam into the latter at an amazing 24,000 kilometers per hour.
The engineers behind Dart hope that this high-speed collision will slightly alter the orbit of Didymoon, making it travel around Didymos in a different path. With only 10 million kilometers between the asteroids and Earth during the collision, this experiment serves as a rehearsal for tackling actual threats. Rest assured, Didymos isn't on a path toward our planet, so there's nothing to worry about.
Europe is also participating in this mission. From Earth, we'll use telescopes to watch the event happen. To gather more comprehensive data, a small satellite called "LICIACube" will be released by the Dart probe to observe the impact closely. Hailing from Italy, LICIACube will send this vital information back to Earth. Furthermore, the European Space Agency's Hera probe will visit Didymoon in 2024, snapping pictures of the crater that results from Dart's impact.
As a fun fact, our solar system hosts an estimated 20,000 rocks traveling through its vast expanse. Out of these, nearly 1,000 have the potential to cause significant damage. However, the most perilous celestial entities are those yet to be found by astronomers.
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Source: symclub.org
