Dinosaurs would dream of getting this capability.
In NASA’s “Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)”, an unmanned spacecraft launched from Earth successfully hit an asteroid,
which NASA says is the world’s first “planet” Defense” test. At the time of impact, they were relatively close to Earth—just under 11 million kilometers.
Dimorphos is an asteroid moon orbiting the near-Earth asteroid Didymos, which astronomers discovered more than two decades ago, meaning “twin” in Greek.
Didymos is about 780 meters wide, and the Dimorphos running around it have a diameter of 160 meters, and its name means “two forms”
Despite the small target chosen, the fast impact would change only 1% of the speed at which Dimorphos orbits Didymos, which doesn’t sound like much,
but it’s enough change to be seen through a telescope.
According to its original orbit, Dimorphos circles Didymos every 11 hours and 55 minutes.
It is expected that the period may change to 11 hours and 45 minutes after the impact.
DART team members say it will take scientists about two months to determine whether the asteroid’s orbit has changed.
