Nasa DART spacecraft to smash into asteroid in Earth protection test mission
- Nasa to crash DART spacecraft into an asteroid in first-of-its kind, save-the-world experiment
- Aim is to slightly deflect asteroid’s orbit, and see if this method would be viable to protect Earth
A spacecraft built by Nasa is set to intentionally crash into a small asteroid as part of a planetary protection test mission.
While this asteroid – named Dimorphos – poses no threat to Earth, the aim of the mission is to demonstrate that dangerous incoming rocks can be deflected by deliberately smashing into them.
The spacecraft, known as Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), is expected to collide with the 170-metre wide asteroid on September 27.
Dimorphos is part of a binary asteroid system and orbits Didymos, which takes around 11 hours and 55 minutes.
But astronomers at Nasa are hoping that DART, while destroying itself in the process, will shorten this orbital period by about 10 minutes.
Nasa said: “DART’s target asteroid is not a threat to Earth but is the perfect testing ground to see if this method of asteroid deflection – known as the kinetic impactor technique – would be a viable way to protect our planet if an asteroid on a collision course with Earth were discovered in the future”.