NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)

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    • Recently, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully crashed into Dimorphous.

    About

    • Humanity’s first planetary defence test: 
      • With the collision, the test has been completed successfully in a mission that went exactly as planned without any hitches.
    • Reason for test: 
      • The impact should have nudged the asteroid slightly and subtly changed its orbit around Didymos, the larger asteroid. 
      • Telescopes on Earth and in space are going to take measurements of this change to see how the change measures up to computer-generated simulations.
    • Why Dimorphos?
      • Didymos is a perfect system for the test mission because it is an eclipsing binary which means it has a moonlet that regularly orbits the asteroid and it can be seen when it passes in front of the main asteroid. 
      • The Didymos system is not an Earth-crossing asteroid, and there is no possibility that the deflection experiment could create an impact hazard.
      • Earth-based telescopes can study this variation in brightness to understand how long it takes Dimorphos to orbit Didymos.

    About the DART Mission 

    • It is a planetary defence-driven test of technologies for preventing an impact on Earth by a hazardous asteroid. 
    • Objectives: 
      • DART is the first technology demonstration of the kinetic impactor technique that could be used to mitigate the threat of an asteroid hitting Earth. 
      • The kinetic impactor mitigation technique is the impulsive deflection of the asteroid through the sudden addition of momentum. In simpler terms, DART is being sent to collide with an asteroid to change its orbital period.

    Image Courtesy: Scientificamerican

    Follow-up mission: Hera

    • The European Space Agency is developing Hera, a spacecraft that will be launched to Didymos in 2024 and arrive in 2027 (5 years after DART’s impact), to do a detailed reconnaissance and assessment.

    Asteroids

    • Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets, are rocky, airless remnants left over from the early formation of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago.
    • Most of this ancient space rubble can be found orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter within the main asteroid belt.
      • Some asteroids go in front of and behind Jupiter, which are called Trojans. 
      • Asteroids that come close to Earth are called Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) for short. NASA keeps close watch on these asteroids.
    • Asteroids range in size from Vesta (the largest at about 329 miles in diameter) to bodies that are less than 33 feet across. The total mass of all the asteroids combined is less than that of Earth’s Moon.
    • Asteroids are not all round like planets. They have jagged and irregular shapes.
    • Structure:
      • Most asteroids are made of different kinds of rocks, but some have clays or metals, such as nickel and iron.
    • Detecting Asteroids Mission
      • Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA): This includes NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission and Hera Mission.
      • Hera Mission: It is the asteroid deflection mission of European Space Agency (ESA) that is scheduled to be launched in 2024 to measure the impact crater produced by the DART collision and study the change in the asteroid’s orbital trajectory. It will arrive at the Didymos system in 2027.

    Source: IE

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