If an asteroid decides to crash into Earth one day, humanity now has something to do to save the planet. NASA officially announced that the DART test it carried out last week was successful.
DART was basically a mission that involved hitting an asteroid with a spacecraft to change its course. Last week, it was announced that the course of the asteroid Dimorphos, which was hit by DART, has changed as intended. Dimorphos’ route around Didymos was shortened by 32 minutes after impact, according to NASA data. NASA used a 73-second change in orbit for the DART mission to be considered successful. The most recently published data revealed that this value changed 25 times more in the test. So, the DART mission was successful.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, at the space agency’s press conference, said, “If an Earth-threatening asteroid is discovered and we can capture it far enough, we can use this technique to deflect it from its path towards Earth,” and continued: “It’s proven we’re serious. This is a turning point for planetary defense and for all of humanity.”
NASA launched the DART mission in November 2021. A refrigerator-size spacecraft was traveling at about 22,530 kilometers per hour when it crossed paths with Dimorphos, about 1,010 million kilometers from Earth.
The DART mission proved that if an asteroid is detected far enough away and of the appropriate size, its course can be altered by a spacecraft sent from Earth. Dimorphos is about the size of a football stadium. So it’s much smaller than the asteroid that crashed into Earth 66 million years ago, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs.
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