Historic success of the US space agency Nasa: The collision with a probe has changed the direction of movement of an asteroid for the first time. A good two weeks after the impact, analyzes showed that the orbit of the celestial body around another asteroid was different than before, NASA said. The time for an orbit before the impact of the “Dart” probe was 11 hours and 55 minutes; now, however, a time of 11 hours and 23 minutes was measured. A change of 73 seconds had previously been issued as the minimum target – as proof that the asteroid had actually been diverted significantly from its previous path.
At a speed of about 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 asteroid defense mission, NASA hopes to find out how the earth could be protected from approaching celestial bodies. However, “Dimorphos” posed no threat to humanity.
“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. 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. “Dart” has provided fascinating 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 dataset to fully understand this first planetary defense test of asteroid deflection.”
NASA and researchers around the world have been dealing with the question of defending 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 do not currently know of any asteroid that could be heading straight for Earth in the foreseeable future. But about 27,000 asteroids have been identified near our planet, of which around 10,000 are more than 140 meters in diameter.