IMPACT SUCCESS! Watch from #DARTMIssion’s DRACO Camera, as the vending machine-sized spacecraft successfully collides with asteroid Dimorphos, which is the size of a football stadium and poses no threat to Earth. During this time the doomed probe was able to capture detailed images of Dimorphos’ bleak, rubble strewn surface. NASA SPACE SHUTTLE POSTER SOFTWAREIn the hours leading up to the impact, DART used sophisticated navigation software to interpret images captured by its onboard camera to autonomously guide itself in. NASA has been sure to stress that neither asteroid posed a threat to Earth either before, or after the test. The target for the mission is the 530 ft (160 m)-wide asteroid/moonlet Dimorphos, which orbits a larger 2,560 ft (780 m) wide asteroid known as Didymos as it careens through the solar system. Just a small change in its speed is all we need to make a significant difference in the path an asteroid travels.” “Now we know we can aim a spacecraft with the precision needed to impact even a small body in space. “Planetary Defense is a globally unifying effort that affects everyone living on Earth,” states Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, Thomas Zurbuchen. The idea is that, if you detect a potentially dangerous asteroid early enough, then it’ll only take a small shunt to send it onto a safer path. Instead, NASA has opted to command a solitary - and obviously uncrewed - probe to strike an asteroid head-on while travelling at 14,000 miles per hour in order to see how the impact would shift its orbit. There is a distinct lack of nuclear weapons, oversized drills, or Bruce Willis-es. Compared to Hollywood movies that deal with similar themes, the mission itself is relatively simplistic. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is the first step along the path to developing a planetary defence against colossal asteroids. However, unlike the dinosaurs, we may have the technological capabilities and the foresight needed to avert such a fate. It is completely possible that the impact of another enormous asteroid could doom the human race to extinction. (Photo by NASA via Getty Image.The most recent monster impact happened roughly 66 million years ago, when a 6 mile (10 km) wide asteroid collided with our planet, and gouged out a massive crater, the remains of which can still be found on the Yucatan Peninsula today.Ī combination of the devastation wrought by the initial impact, and the environmental changes brought about by the resulting fallout, sounded the death knell for 75 percent of all animal life on Earth, and effectively ended the age of the dinosaurs. Discovery, on its 39th and final flight, is carrying the Italian-built Permanent Multipurpose Module (PMM), Express Logistics Carrier 4 (ELC4) and Robonaut 2, the first humanoid robot in space to the International Space Station. During the six-hour, 34-minute spacewalk, Bowen and Drew installed the J612 power extension cable, move a failed ammonia pump module to the External Stowage Platform 2 on the Quest Airlock for return to Earth at a later date, installed a camera wedge on the right hand truss segment, installed extensions to the mobile transporter rail and exposed the Japanese "Message in a Bottle" experiment to space. IN SPACE - FEBRUARY 28: In this handout image provided by NASA, NASA astronauts Steve Bowen (foreground) and Alvin Drew, both STS-133 mission specialists, participate in the mission's first session of extravehicular activity (EVA) as construction and maintenance continue on the International Space Station Februin Space.
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