Scientists are constantly concerned that flying in space asteroids can at any moment to collide with the Earth. To track potentially dangerous objects and to take protective measures in 2016, NASA opened a Coordination office for planetary defense. It became known that in the spring or summer of 2021, the scientists will test the technique of the withdrawal of the asteroid with kinetic impact.
The mission is called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). It will be conducted by scientists from the applied physics laboratory of Johns Hopkins University. During the mission they learn how the technique is kinetic impact effective to change the trajectory of asteroids.
The main element of the mission will be a spacecraft the size of a car. In the tests he will fly to the binary system of asteroids Didim using on-Board targeting. The system consists of two objects: the asteroid of Didim And with a diameter of 800 meters and satellite Didim B with a diameter of 150 meters. The device will come In Didim at the speed of 6.5 km/s.
We want to understand the nature of the asteroids, seeing how they react to external stimuli, if necessary, to reflect the impending object. This will be the first scheduled approach to the system, which is an important subset of near-earth asteroids.
The discovery of the asteroid Didim was held on 11 April 1996. It is named after the Greek scholar Didymus the Musician. To discuss this news, you can in our telegram chat.
Kinetic strike to protect the Earth from asteroid collisions
Ramis Ganiev