![]() Take the most recent example of this subgenre, “ Don’t Look Up.” Released last year in theaters and on Netflix, writer-director Adam McKay’s unruly political satire is set off by two Michigan State University astronomers (Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio) who discover a comet that seems to have popped out of nowhere and within six months will collide with our planet hard enough to extinguish all life.īefore that, in 1998, there were two of these blockbusters: Michael Bay’s “Armageddon” and Mimi Leder’s “Deep Impact.” Then we either a) panic, b) submit or c) fly some of our own humans up there to save us all. Who believes these warnings? Exactly nobody, until the skies are riddled with speeding debris sliding and shooting off the looming object. Somebody finds unmistakable evidence of a) an asteroid, b) a meteor, c) a comet, d) a rogue moon or e) a whole planet closing in on us. NASA’s big idea here is to see whether using such unmanned hardware to nudge incoming space debris out of harm’s way is going to protect Earth in the future. On Monday, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, spacecraft is supposed to collide with Dimorphos, a small “moon” orbiting the near-Earth asteroid Didymos. There’s a giant rock ahead and NASA is crashing a spacecraft into it - and no, it's not a movie. Randall Mindy and Jennifer Lawrence As Kate Dibiasky in the Netflix film "Don't Look Up." (Niko Tavernise/Netflix) While this is happening, the spacecraft will point the solar rays at the sun, which then sends data back to Earth at the rate of one image per second. “We’re going to execute a bunch of maneuvers, all autonomously," she said, describing how the spacecraft will be guided toward Dimorphos. They will grow larger and larger until Dimorphos fills the entire frame just before impact. Prior to Didymos and Dimorphos coming into view as tiny pinpricks of light a few hours before the collision, the camera is likely to be completely black. The spacecraft will see the moon as "just one pixel” in the video of the DRACO camera, Adams said. The smaller asteroid, Dimorphos, the mission's main target, is Didymos' moon.ĭimorphos will come into view for the first time. ![]() It starting to guide itself toward Didymos," Adams said, referring to the bigger asteroid that is already visible. It does this with the help of an instrument called the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation, or DRACO, which will grab images of both celestial bodies and support the spacecraft's guidance system. At this point, the spacecraft is guiding itself toward Didymos, the larger asteroid in the system. Even though a team is watching data come into the command center “the spacecraft has to do everything," Adams said during a briefing on Thursday. The spacecraft has become completely autonomous. ET, here's what's happening, according to Elena Adams, the DART mission systems engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. The DART mission spacecraft is scheduled to collide shortly with a near-Earth asteroid.Īhead of impact with Dimorphos at around 7:14 p.m. The spacecraft is about 100 times smaller than Dimorphos, so it won’t obliterate the asteroid. Detecting the threat of near-Earth objects, or NEOs, that could cause grave harm is a primary focus of NASA and other space organizations around the world.ĭimorphos was chosen because its size is relative to asteroids that could be a threat. “For the first time ever, we will measurably change the orbit of a celestial body in the universe,” said Robert Braun, head of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory’s Space Exploration Sector. The event will be the agency’s first full-scale demonstration of deflection technology that can protect the planet. The asteroid system poses no threat, NASA officials have said, making it a perfect target to test out a kinetic impact – which may be needed if an asteroid is ever on track to hit the Earth. The mission is heading for Dimorphos, a small moon orbiting the near-Earth asteroid Didymos. The DART mission, or the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, is getting ready to deliberately crash into a space rock on Monday - and it's all in the name of protecting Earth. Illustration of DART, from behind the NEXT-C ion engine (John Hopkins APL/NASA)
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