NASA will launch spaceship to “bump” asteroid and stop future impact

NASA will launch spaceship to “bump” asteroid and stop future impact

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What can we possibly do to stop it from affecting the planet if an asteroid goes to Earth?

According to NASA: Punch it.

Stopping an asteroid impact is something that has been tossed around in serious scientific discussions and in science fiction works. However, the solutions proposed and displayed differed.

But NASA scientists actually have a plan to hit an asteroid, or rather crash a spaceship right in front of it.

The concept looks ridiculous, almost like an April Fool’s joke. But the project is very real and is well into the planning and development phase.

The project is known as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, and was developed by NASA and John Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory together with several NASA centers.

The technology in question, as outlined on NASA’s website, contains what they call the ‘kinetic impact’ technique, which should be able to alter the motion of an asteroid in space.

How it works is that the spacecraft will crash straight into an asteroid at a speed of about 6.6 kilometers per second. This should force the asteroid to change the speed of its orbit. This will only change it by a fraction of a percentage, but it is enough to be observed and measured by astronomers with telescopes.

The launch window of the craft will only open in late July and will be launched with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It will then fly into space for the first test in the Didymos asteroid system. Mankind’s first blow to an asteroid is expected in September 2022, when the craft will enter the system.

“Until now, we have not had too many options to do when we get in,” APL astronomer and DART investigator Andy Rivkin told Vice News.

“DART is the first test of how we can deduce something without going to a core package, or sitting in our basements, waiting it out and crossing our fingers.”

The core option that Rivkin refers to is one of the most common methods of destroying asteroids in popular culture. In essence, nuclear weapons would be used to blow the asteroid apart.

The idea is very spectacular to think about and provides an impressive visual for science fiction films. In real life, however, the idea is at best, not ideal, and at worst potentially catastrophic. This is because the destruction of an asteroid will result in smaller rocks, which are likely to move toward the planet. If they get through the earth’s atmosphere, the damage they can do will still be severe.

The DART project is more subtle, pushing the asteroid with a softer sting instead of an explosive nook.

Rivkin acknowledged this and told Vice that scientists just want to see what happens, and told the news agency, “If asteroids want to keep you awake at night, you need to be excited about how cool they are, and not worry.”

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