NASA Mission May Cause Artificial Meteor Shower
May 14, 2020 4:15:39 GMT 10
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2020 4:15:39 GMT 10
This NASA Mission May Cause an Artificial Meteor Shower
May 13, 2020
If all goes to plan, in September 2022 a NASA spacecraft, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission or DART, will slam into a space rock with the equivalent energy of three tons of TNT. The goal is to nudge the orbit of its target object ever-so-slightly, a practice run to see if we could divert an asteroid from a catastrophic impact with our planet in the future.
The impact on that asteroid could produce the first meteor shower ever to result from human activities in space, according to a paper published earlier this year in The Planetary Science Journal. Observing the shower could let scientists on Earth study the composition of near-Earth asteroids. But this cloud of debris would also mark a small irony for a space mission that has a goal of helping to protect our planet.
If this small shower of space rocks reaches our planet, it will create a minuscule amount of peril for orbiting satellites. Although the risk is tiny, the study’s author says, anticipating the effects of the spacecraft’s operations could establish a template for future space missions to minimize their impacts on Earth and the commons of space through which it travels.
NASA plans to launch the 1,100-pound DART spacecraft in 2021. Its target is Didymos, a pair of near-Earth asteroids that travel around the sun together. DART is aiming for the smaller of the two, affectionately named Didymoon, which measures about 535 feet across and orbits the larger asteroid. The force of the impact is expected to change Didymoon’s 11.92-hour orbit by about 4 minutes, a big enough change for telescopes on Earth to detect. If it succeeds, the mission might help confirm that humanity’s best defense against a rogue asteroid is to bump it into another orbit away from Earth.
FULL ARTICLE @ DNYUZ
dnyuz.com/2020/05/13/this-nasa-mission-may-cause-an-artificial-meteor-shower/
May 13, 2020
If all goes to plan, in September 2022 a NASA spacecraft, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission or DART, will slam into a space rock with the equivalent energy of three tons of TNT. The goal is to nudge the orbit of its target object ever-so-slightly, a practice run to see if we could divert an asteroid from a catastrophic impact with our planet in the future.
The impact on that asteroid could produce the first meteor shower ever to result from human activities in space, according to a paper published earlier this year in The Planetary Science Journal. Observing the shower could let scientists on Earth study the composition of near-Earth asteroids. But this cloud of debris would also mark a small irony for a space mission that has a goal of helping to protect our planet.
If this small shower of space rocks reaches our planet, it will create a minuscule amount of peril for orbiting satellites. Although the risk is tiny, the study’s author says, anticipating the effects of the spacecraft’s operations could establish a template for future space missions to minimize their impacts on Earth and the commons of space through which it travels.
NASA plans to launch the 1,100-pound DART spacecraft in 2021. Its target is Didymos, a pair of near-Earth asteroids that travel around the sun together. DART is aiming for the smaller of the two, affectionately named Didymoon, which measures about 535 feet across and orbits the larger asteroid. The force of the impact is expected to change Didymoon’s 11.92-hour orbit by about 4 minutes, a big enough change for telescopes on Earth to detect. If it succeeds, the mission might help confirm that humanity’s best defense against a rogue asteroid is to bump it into another orbit away from Earth.
FULL ARTICLE @ DNYUZ
dnyuz.com/2020/05/13/this-nasa-mission-may-cause-an-artificial-meteor-shower/