Giant space 'boulders' unleashed by NASA's DART mission aren't behaving as expected, revealing hidden risks of deflectin [View all]
Three years ago, NASA made history by deliberately smashing a spacecraft into a large asteroid, altering its course and demonstrating humankind’s ability to protect our planet from "potentially hazardous" space rocks in the future.
But a new analysis hints that the debris from this monumental collision is not behaving as expected, raising doubts about the success of future asteroid-deflecting missions.
On Sept. 26, 2022, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft purposefully collided with the asteroid Dimorphos, crashing directly into the middle of the space rock at around 15,000 mph (24,000 km/h). The mission was a smashing success: Not only did DART alter Dimorphos' trajectory — shortening its trip around its partner asteroid Didymos by around 30 minutes — it also completely changed the shape of the asteroid.
The collision, which occurred more than 7 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth, demonstrated that this type of action, known as the "kinetic impactor" method, was a conceivably viable option for protecting our planet from potentially hazardous asteroids.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/giant-space-boulders-unleashed-by-nasa-s-dart-mission-aren-t-behaving-as-expected-revealing-hidden-risks-of-deflecting-asteroids/ar-AA1IFpJr
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