NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully impacted the asteroid it hit. DART is the first-ever planetary defense technology demonstration.
The success of DART as announced by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, promises a viable technique to protect the planet from an asteroid if it comes into a collision course with Earth.
Testing of DART was carried out with asteroid moonlet Dimorphos as the target. Dimorphos is seven million miles away from Earth and does not threaten our planet’s safety. It is just about 530 feet in diameter, orbiting a relatively larger, 2,560-foot asteroid Didymos.
NASA will now watch Dimorphos to precisely measure how much DART’s collision deflected it from its orbit around Didymos. Researchers at the space agency expect Dimorphos’ orbit to reduce by about 1% or roughly 10 minutes.
Now, further, in about four years, the European Space Agency’s Hera project will carry out a comprehensive survey of Dimorphos and Didymos.
Hailing the success of DART mission, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson called it, “A real benefit for all humanity.”