NASA successfully launched a spacecraft that will be impacted against an asteroid 11 million miles from Earth next year.
The mission called “Double Asteroid Redirection Test” (Dart), which involves NASA teams and the European Space Agency, will test a series of technological maneuvers to prevent the impact of an asteroid against Earth.
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The ship was launched on Wednesday, November 24, at 10:21 p.m. from the Pacific, aboard a Spacex Falcon 9 rocket, from the base of the Vandenberg Air Force, California.
The success of the mission could pave the way for a new planetary defense system that can diverts incoming asteroids before impact.
The plan reflects the plot of the great success of Hollywood "Armageddon", in which NASA flies a spacecraft against an asteroid to prevent the earth from hitting.
"Dart will be the first demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique to change the movement of an asteroid in space," NASA said on its website.
The Dart spacecraft, of 1,200 pounds of weight and the size of a refrigerator flanked by two solar panels 18 meters long, will travel around the sun to crash against a small asteroid named Dimorphos to 15,000 miles per hour next year.
If the mission is successful, it could demonstrate for the first time the ability of humanity to move a potentially dangerous asteroid away from the earth.
The Dart space probe will visit Dimorphos and another asteroid, Didymos, in September or October 2022.
The impact is expected to take place between September 26 and October 1 of next year.
The two asteroids, called binary system, orbit around the sun every two years along an egg -shaped route that extends near Mars and returns near the earth.
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Dimorphos is the smallest in the pair, Orbit Didymos as a moon at a distance of approximately one mile and complete a revolution of the largest rock every 11 hours and 55 minutes.
Dimorphos, similar to one of Giza's pyramids, is not a threat to Earth.
After Dart crashes against his objective, NASA's telescopes and ESA on Earth will study it thoroughly to verify if the scheme has worked.
A tiny cubesat launched together with the mission will collect data before, during and after the impact.
“The Dart spacecraft will achieve the deviation of kinetic impact deliberately colliding with Dimorphos at a speed of approximately 6.6 kilometers per second, with the help of a camera on board (called Draco) and a sophisticated autonomous navigation software, ”explained NASA.
“The collision will change the speed of the moon in its orbit around the main body in a fraction of one percent.
"This will change the orbital period of the moon in several minutes, enough to be observed and measured with telescopes on Earth".
Space experts have already identified at least 26,000 of the so -called "objects close to Earth".
It is estimated that 4,700 of them comply with the classification of “potentially dangerous objects” determined by NASA.
That means they have more than 500 feet wide, they go to 4.7 million miles from the earth and would cause devastating damage if they collided with it.
Read more* NASA delays the launch of the James Webb telescope by an incident when climbing it in a vehicle* No asteroid will threaten the land in at least 100 years, according to NASA* EE.UU.delay human trip to the moon until 2025
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