For those who have not seen it, we leave a fragment of the movie Armageddon. It may be one of the first films that come to mind, after the recent announcement by NASA. In the movie Armageddon, a large meteor is heading for our planet. The way used in the film to get rid of it is to land on the asteroid. Then make a large hole to place a bomb and detonate it. In this way it is possible to split the meteorite into two pieces that, together with the impulse, each one passes by one side of our planet.
If the ambitious plan is achieved, it would be a great milestone in the institution's 58-year history. The increasingly extensive management that our species is achieving of its environment is worthy of reflection. In fact, there is even a scale to measure the level of technological development for a civilization, and an extension that a scientist made of it. But today we are going to talk about the NASA project.
How do they intend to achieve it?
The name of the program that the project is going to develop is called DART, for "Double Asteroid Redirection Test." The goal is to get to divert these large rocks from our planet.
Photograph provided by ESA of the project
For that, They are going to launch a ship that hits the asteroid Didymos, which in Greek means twin. Didymos is made up of two fragments, Didymos A, 780 meters in diameter and B, 160 meters. They will pass 11km from Earth in October 2022 and then in 2024.
The deflection technique, that is, deflecting the asteroid's trajectory, will be carried out together with experts from the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland. "Would NASA's first mission to demonstrate what is known as the kinetic impact technique to defend against a potential future impact of an asteroid. Remarks by Lindley Johnson, NASA Planetary Defense Officer.
The spacecraft will launch to impact at 21.600km / h. Or what is the same, at 6km per second, about 9 times the speed of a bullet. With this, the effects of the impact can be analyzed.