With the Dart mission, NASA wants to deviate the trajectory of an asteroid
Dart, a NASA probe will deliberately crash into the asteroid Dimorphos.
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On the night of Monday to Tuesday, NASA will try an unprecedented experiment: deliberately hitting an asteroid with a probe.
An experiment which aims to prepare our planetary defense strategies as well as possible and to be ready if in the distant future, an asteroid were to strike the Earth.
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The scenario inevitably recalls the action film with Bruce Willis: an asteroid is about to hit the Earth.
But in real life, unable to send a shock team to destroy it, we are preparing to proceed differently if ever the situation were to arise.
This is the goal of Dart, a NASA probe that will deliberately crash into the asteroid Dimorphos – which itself orbits another asteroid, Didymos.
Objective: to determine to what extent the impact has an effect on its trajectory.
"
This should change Dimorphos' orbit around Didymos enough for us to measure it,
" said Tom Statler, a scientist with the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, a NASA organization
.
On the other hand, it is difficult to tell you when it will be observed.
It depends on the effect of the impact.
And of course, if we knew this in advance, we wouldn't need to experience it.
Today, the orbit takes 11 hours and 55 minutes.
It is believed that this will change within minutes.
»
It doesn't sound like much, but if successful, it would be the first time humanity has altered the trajectory of a celestial body.
The maneuver is without danger for the Earth, recalls Tom Statler: “
On the contrary, it will be rich in lessons to protect it in the event of a threat of collision with an asteroid in the future.
»
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