The American space agency NASA has destroyed one of its spacecraft by hitting an asteroid with great skill and success during an experiment in space. Through this mission, NASA wants to find out how difficult it can be to stop a large space rock from hitting the Earth.
This experiment of hitting a spaceship with a big rock in space has been done about one million kilometers away from the earth. And the asteroid targeted by the spacecraft is named Dimorphos while the mission is called Dart mission.
The US space agency NASA says that the space rock is not currently on a collision course or orbit and that the experiment will not accidentally or accidentally send the rock to Earth.
The experiment will be conducted at 12:14 PM British time when the NASA spacecraft collided with the asteroid and the entire process was captured by the camera on the spacecraft until it was destroyed.
The spacecraft sent back images of the entire experiment and every second of its journey to impact the asteroid.
The experiment has been observed by other space telescopes, including the James Webb, the largest telescope in space.
We have seen such scenes many times in Hollywood movies when they perform such feats with their brave astronauts and nuclear weapons. But in reality, how to save the earth from a dangerous asteroid?
NASA is trying to answer that question. An easy way, he thinks, is to crash the spacecraft itself into the asteroid.
The idea behind this process is that you have to slow down the asteroid to slightly change its trajectory towards the Earth so that the Earth doesn't become a target. Provided you do this from a good distance from the ground.
Controllers at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory jumped for joy at the completion of the experiment as the spacecraft filled its camera with the asteroid Dimorphos just moments before impact.
According to the preliminary calculation of the scientists, the spacecraft in this experiment hit only 17 meters from the center of the asteroid.
Although it will take some time for NASA scientists to know if their experiment was successful, Lori Glaze, director of space science at NASA, is confident that some important results have been obtained.
"We are entering a new era for mankind, an era in which we may be able to protect ourselves from the impact of a dangerous asteroid," he told reporters. How amazing. We never had this capability before.
Dr. Elena Adams, the mission system engineer at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, said, "We Earthlings should sleep peacefully knowing that they now have a defense system against space attack."
The mission was to test the theory that a spacecraft would hit a 160-meter-wide asteroid called Dimorphos at a speed of about 20,000 to 22,000 km.
It is expected that after this experiment, the asteroid should begin to move a few minutes a day towards the orbit of the nearby, much larger asteroid, Didymos.
NASA promised to capture stunning images of the entire experiment as soon as the spacecraft hits the 570 kg asteroid.
Explaining the mission, Dr. Nancy Chabot of Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory said, "The DART mission is the first defense experiment in space in which a spacecraft is demonstrated to collide with an asteroid in order to protect the asteroid in space." The direction can be changed slightly.'
More than two dozen space telescopes on Earth observed the experiment and will now closely observe the distance between the orbits of the asteroids Dimorphos and Didymos.
He told that: 'It's a process where, if necessary, you can nudge asteroid years in advance to move it slightly out of orbit to prevent future collisions between the Earth and the asteroid. '
Before this DART mission, scientists said that it would be very difficult for the spacecraft to target this asteroid named Dimorphos because the NASA spacecraft could distinguish between the 780-meter-wide asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos in the last 50 minutes. will and will be able to hit its original target.
After the mission, he says that everything went according to plan and the Dart mission hit its target by distinguishing between asteroid Dimorphos and asteroid Didymos.
The navigation software in the spacecraft is programmed or developed in such a way that the spacecraft will aim directly at its target as it travels.
Dr. Andy Rivkin, head of the mission at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, told that: 'It's exactly what the program was designed to do, it's exactly what it says on the box. '
Dr. Tom Stotler, NASA's Dart mission scientist, said, "Because of the speed and distance of light, it is not possible for a pilot to sit on the ground and control or operate this spacecraft."
"We had to develop a software that could quickly analyze the images taken by this spacecraft, determine which is the real target and take a direct path in pursuit of its target," he added.'
During this mission, as the spacecraft moves towards the asteroid to 'collision', each scan of the action and scene will send an image back to Earth. And in these images, the asteroid showing a bright point will grow and cover the entire scene, after which the series of images will be interrupted at once because at that time the spaceship will have collided with this asteroid and been destroyed. will
Fortunately, the story of this entire mission does not end here because the spacecraft involved in this Dart mission also launched a 14 kg satellite manufactured by Italy a few days ago. The purpose of this is to find out what happens after the dart hits the asteroid. This satellite will record all this process.
The satellite will capture images of the experiment from a distance of about 50 km during this mission and will return images to Earth over the next few days.
The satellite is named Lycia Cube and Simone Perrotta of the Italian space agency says it will pass by about three minutes after Dart hits the asteroid.
He says that the time of three minutes is set so that by that time the effects of the impact of the spacecraft on the asteroid will be complete and the change in its orbit caused by this impact will be given time. Because the second major task of the Lycia Cube satellite is to observe how much the spacecraft's orbit changed after it hit the asteroid and how far it slipped from its orbit.'
At this time, the asteroid Demoris completes its orbit around the asteroid Didymos in about 11 hours and 55 minutes. The experiment is expected to make a minor difference to its orbital period and it will complete the orbit in 11 hours and 45 minutes. However, this measurement will be confirmed by a space telescope in the next few weeks and months.
According to space surveys and statistical data, we have identified 95% of giant asteroids in space that, if they collided with Earth, could completely wipe out human life on Earth (but they might not, (Their orbits are calculated so they cannot come close to Earth.)
But despite these, there are many small asteroids in space that can wreak havoc after hitting the Earth, be it regionally or at the level of a specific city.
According to scientists, if an asteroid like Dimorphos were to hit the Earth (which it won't), it could create a crater a kilometer wide and hundreds of meters deep, and the shockwaves from the impact could have severe effects on nearby areas.
Four years from now, the European Space Agency will have three spacecraft, collectively known as the HERA mission, investigating the aftermath of the experiment on Datymos and Dimorphous.
Source: BBC
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