Anicet Mbida 7:01 am, November 24, 2021

Every day, Anicet Mbida makes us discover an innovation that could well change the way we consume.

This Wednesday, he is interested in the NASA DART mission which takes off this Wednesday morning to try to deflect a meteor.

You may remember the movie Armageddon where Bruce Willis had to blow up an asteroid before it hit the earth.

Today, reality is catching up with fiction: in about half an hour, a NASA mission will take off to try to deflect a meteor.

This is the DART mission.

Its objective: to test a technique for protecting the earth if, unfortunately, a huge asteroid were heading towards us (no one wants to suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs).

No way to detonate it with an atomic bomb like Bruce Willis.

It would send chunks all over the place.

This would only increase the risk of collisions.

Instead, we're going to send some kind of kamikaze ship crashing into the asteroid.

It would deviate its trajectory by just a few millimeters.

But a few millimeters, for an object located millions of kilometers away, it could change its trajectory enough to avoid the earth.

How far away is the asteroid we are trying to deflect?

It is more than 10 million km from the earth.

Before intercepting it, it will take almost a year of travel.

The collision is not expected until September 2022.

We remind you: this asteroid is not dangerous for the earth.

It has been observed for a long time.

Its trajectory is perfectly known.

We will therefore know very quickly if we have managed to deflect it and by how much.

If it works, we can be proud to have finally found a weapon to protect us from meteors.

What is the risk ?

Have we ever spotted one that threatens the earth?

Yes, the asteroid Bennu.

We are watching him closely.

According to the latest calculations, there is a good chance of hitting the earth very precisely on Tuesday, September 24, 2182 (in 161 years).

Bennu is quite small.

It is only 500 meters in diameter, while the one who exterminated the dinosaurs was 10 km wide.

Still, there is plenty to do huge damage.

Good news, we still have 160 years ahead of us to find a solution ... even if this mission does not work.