It is for the first time in the history of humankind that a celestial object in space had its trajectory changed by artificial interference.
NASA had reportedly launched a project named DART, where it launched a spacecraft directly at an asteroid. The mission was for the spacecraft to make direct contact with the incoming object and hit it with enough force to change its trajectory.
Although there were many speculations that the mission would fail, NASA named the crown to itself with the successful mission. Following the mission, NASA confirmed that the direction of the asteroid has been changed.
DART Spacecraft and Asteroid Dimorphos
The details of the mission revealed that the name of the spacecraft that was to hit the asteroid was DART that was created by NASA itself.
The name of the asteroid that had been targeted by NASA’s DART spacecraft was ‘Dimorphos’. NASA has confirmed that following the successful mission, the orbit of the particular has been shortened.
The officials at NASA were glad to reveal that Dimorphos’s orbit has been shortened by 32 minutes. According to the astronomers and the scientists at NASA, the shortening of the asteroid’s orbit is much greater than their expectations.
DART, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, witnessed the spacecraft hitting the asteroid at an extremely high speed on September 26, 2022.
The entire DART mission was streamed live all over the world and it saw the spacecraft hitting the asteroid at 22,500 kilometers per hour.
The purpose of the mission was to hit the asteroid and force it to change its trajectory a bit, pushing it closer to Didymos, which is a larger asteroid.
Dimorphos reportedly orbits Didymos and after the mission, Dimorphos has moved closer to the larger asteroid. This confirms that the spacecraft successfully completed its mission.
No Threat to Earth
NASA has confirmed that they carried out the mission on the particular asteroids as they pose no threats to earth in any way. There were several concerns pertaining to NASA launching the mission and hitting the asteroid.
There were talks that Dimorphos was on its way to hit the earth and NASA was trying hard to deal with the situation.
However, NASA officially confirmed that neither Didymos nor Dimorphos poses any kind of threat or danger to our beloved planet.
A Great Breakthrough
The success of the mission is a great breakthrough for all the scientists and researchers involved in the mission.
The mission has helped scientists confirm that it is possible to change the trajectory of asteroids by nudging them with enough speed and force.
This way, scientists would be able to change the trajectory of the asteroids that may be harmful to the earth. The path of the asteroids directly coming to earth can be changed using the same method, saving our planet from hazardous impacts.
It is a huge success for humanity in dealing with one of the major natural disasters that has a bad history with our planet.