The NASA experiment is called the “Double Asteroid Redirection Test,” or Dart for short. The spacecraft intended for this was launched in California at the end of November. At around 23,000 kilometers per hour, it is expected to impact the asteroid moon Dimorphos on Tuesday morning at 1:14 a.m. CEST, thereby slightly changing its trajectory. NASA wants to broadcast the collision of the spacecraft the size of a car and the 160-meter-wide celestial body live on the Internet.
Even if everything doesn’t go as planned, the experiment poses no danger. After all, Dimorphos and the asteroid Didymos that Dimorphos orbits are always at least seven million miles from Earth.
The impact of the spacecraft is intended to slightly change the orbit of Dimorphos. According to NASA plans, it will then take ten minutes less to orbit Didymos instead of the previous eleven hours and 55 minutes. If the spacecraft misses Dimorphos, it will have enough fuel for a second attempt in two years.
Of the billions of asteroids and comets in our solar system, very few are classified as potentially dangerous to our planet. No impact on Earth is expected for the next 100 years.
This message was broadcast on Deutschlandfunk on September 25, 2022.