NASA to Launch Asteroid Deflection Test Mission
November 23, 2021
If an asteroid is hurtling toward Earth, can humanity be saved not with a bang, but with a nudge?
NASA is poised to investigate just that with a first-of-its-kind mission to deflect an asteroid by intentionally crashing a spacecraft into it. The mission, set to launch Wednesday, offers a rare, real-world chance to test a planetary defense strategy that could protect Earth from a potentially catastrophic collision in the future.
The $325 million DART mission, short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, is scheduled to launch Wednesday at 1:21 a.m. ET from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The spacecraft will ride into orbit atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The probe will then spend almost a year journeying to an asteroid system more than 6.5 million miles away from Earth. The mission's target is Dimorphos, a space rock measuring 525 feet across that orbits a much larger asteroid named Didymos, which measures around 2,500 feet across.
Neither Dimorphos nor Didymos pose a threat to the planet, according to NASA, but the system is a "perfect testing ground" for whether crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid can effectively change its motion in space.
Next fall, NASA will smash the DART spacecraft into Dimorphos at a speed of around 15,000 mph. Telescopes on Earth have been studying Didymos and its "moonlet" Dimorphos for decades, and have observed that the smaller space rock circles its larger counterpart once every 11 hours and 55 minutes, said Nancy Chabot, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the mission's coordination lead.
Story by Denise Chow for NBC News.
Watch Post Commentary: Germain to this story is the end times "Wormwood prophecy" of Revelation.
The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter. (Revelation 8:10-11)
May scientists be aware of a coming threat that would fulfill this prophecy? Might they be working on a way to prevent such a catastrophe? Time will certainly tell.
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