New York –
The US space agency Nasa is celebrating a great success: the targeted collision of a probe with an asteroid has changed its direction of movement for the first time in history.
About two weeks after the impact, analyzes showed that the orbit of the celestial body around another asteroid was different than before, NASA announced on Tuesday.
Nasa: “Dart” probe hits asteroid and changes orbit
The time for an orbit before the impact of the “Dart” probe was 11:55 hours – now, on the other hand, a time of 11:23 hours was measured. The previously issued minimum target of a change of at least 73 seconds was thus clearly exceeded.
At a speed of around 6.6 kilometers per second, the cube-shaped “Dart” probe, the size of a vending machine, crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos, which is about the size of a football stadium, at the end of September.
From the approximately 330 million dollar asteroid defense mission hopes NASA Insights into how the earth could be protected from approaching celestial bodies. However, Dimorphos posed no threat to humanity.
NASA boss calls mission with dart probe a “turning point”
“This mission shows that Nasa is trying to be prepared for whatever the universe throws at us. NASA has proven that we take defending the planet seriously,” said Space Agency chief Bill Nelson.
Nasa boss Bill Nelson sees the Dart mission as a turning point.
He called the mission’s success a “watershed moment” in protecting humanity from an asteroid impact. In the coming weeks and months, the impact of the collision will now be further investigated. In 2024, the “Hera” mission of the European Space Agency Esa is to start for even more detailed research.
Vice President of the USA full of praise for NASA
Dart has provided intriguing data on both the properties of asteroids and the effectiveness of an impact in defending Earth, said mission director Nancy Chabot. “The Dart team continues to work on this rich data set to fully understand this first planetary defense test of asteroid deflection.”
Congratulations also came from the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris. The Democrat tweeted the praise: “The #DARTMission was the first time humans have altered the motion of a celestial body in space and demonstrated technology that could one day be used to protect the Earth.”
Asteroids can hit Earth
NASA and researchers around the world have been dealing with the question of how to defend against an asteroid for many years. An asteroid impact around 66 million years ago, for example, is considered by scientists to be the leading theory as to why the dinosaurs became extinct.
Scientists don’t currently know of any asteroid that could be heading straight for Earth any time soon – but researchers have identified around 27,000 asteroids near our planet, around 10,000 of them with a diameter of more than 140 meters. (pst/dpa)