Technical graphics depicting spacecraft plunging into asteroids.(Video: Emergency Asteroid Defense Project.)
On June 30, the US Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced plans to conduct the first test to change the asteroid's flight direction toward Earth.
The launch is part of the DART project, a joint project between NASA and the Johns Hopkins Physics Laboratory in Maryland, which aims to protect the Earth from the asteroids greater than the available size. Can be burned by the atmosphere.
Artwork: Internet.
The experiment will be conducted in October 2022 and the goal will be the non-threatening Didymos asteroid system, including the smaller Didymos B asteroid orbiting the Didymos asteroid A. A spacecraft sized By refrigerator, NASA will launch and crash into Didymos B at 21,436 km / h.
This collision will change a small part of Didymos B's velocity, which changes the asteroid's flight trajectory.
After the experiment, scientists will study the impact of the impact on the orbit of Didymos B. From there, they will consider the effectiveness of this method in protecting the Earth from meteorites. great.