Get ready to watch NASA slamming a spacecraft into an asteroid next month
Image courtesy:Nature
Next month, here’s the information to watch a spacecraft slamming into an asteroid. You can watch all the action from NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirect Mission (DART) live at Space.com and on NASA TV(opens in a new tab), including on impact day (Sept. 26).
In the weeks leading up to the impact, one could also tune in to media briefings over the mission’s goals and progress.
DART will slam into Dimorphos, the moonlet of a near-Earth asteroid called Didymos. If successful, the spacecraft will change the path of Dimorphos in its orbit around Didymos; just how much Dimorphos’ orbit changes will be confirmed in the months and years after the impact, Space.com reports.
The mission targets to check out planetary defense methods in a safe environment, as the activities constitute no threats whatsoever to Earth.
In 2024, The European Space Agency will be launching a follow-up surveyor mission called Hera. That spacecraft will be studying the two asteroids in greater detail which includes a checking up on the impact crater and calculating the physical structure and chemical composition of the double worlds.
