NASA's DART spacecraft smashes into asteroid Dimorphous in landmark space maneuver

In world’s first-of-its-kind planetary defence maeuvre kwn as Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), NASA’s craft smashed into an asteroid on Tuesday at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT) or 3:30 am Tuesday, Indian Standard Time (IST). cosmic collision was carried out more than 6.5 million miles away from Earth and hit surface of an asteroid called Dimorphos, an asteroid with a diameter of just 560 feet (170 meters). NASA ran live cover of event on NASA TV, NASA's website, and NASA's social media channels.

latter make up what’s called a binary asteroid system and while it does t pose any threat to Earth, it occasionally passes relatively close to Earth and was chosen as target for NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission. NASA’s craft hit asteroid at an estimated speed of over 14,000 miles per hour. Didymos which means "twin" in Greek – was discovered on April 11, 1996, by researcher Joseph Montani of watch at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona.

This im of light from asteroid Didymos and its orbiting moonlet Dimorphos is a composite of 243 ims taken by Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO) . Credit: NASA JPL DART Navigation Team

goal of mission was to determine how much DART's impact alters steroid’s velocity, which scientists estimate may have been by a fraction of one per cent. mission was mand for NASA by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL). 

NASA's mission to change asteroid’s orbit

ncy carried out historic collision in hope that it will change asteroid’s orbit, speeding it up by small volume. landmark mission can furr be used to deflect hazardous asteroids that pose risks to Earth. craft crashed into Dimorphos, at speeds of over 14,000 miles per hour. Didymos spins rapidly – rotating about once every 2.26 hours. moonlet revolves around larger body about once every 11.9 hours. main asteroid and its moonlet orbit each or about 0.62 miles (1 kilometre) apart.

"This is an exciting time, t only for ncy but in history and in history of humankind, quite frankly," Lindley Johnson, NASA's planetary defense officer, said in a news conference ahead of collision test. ”This demonstration is extremely important to our future here on Earth.”

DART was launched atop a X Falcon 9 rocket earlier on v. 23, 2021, and has since been travelling 7 million miles (11 million kilometres) to Didymos and Dimorphos to smash into it. collision was recorded on sole instrument, Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO). DRACO was t able to spot Dimorphos until about an hour before impact. 

At about three minutes prior to impact, two minutes prior to impact, it was 42 pixels in size. DRACO is expected to beam one im per second on Earth as it approached Dimorphos at a raging speed of14,760 mph (23,760 kph). Researchers could view asteroid system up close using ims returned from DART’s onboard instrument DRACO which is a high-resolution imr based on  New Horizons craft’s LORRI instrument.

“It’s a difficult job,” JPL’s Julie Bellerose, who leads DART craft navigation team had said about test. 

“A big part of what navigation team is working on is getting DART to a 9-mile-wide (15-kilometer-wide) box in 24 hours before impact.”

At that point, Bellerose said, mission’s final trajectory correction maeuvre ( firing of thrusters to modify direction of flight) had to be executed by mission controllers back on Earth. From n on, it would be up to DART. During final hours of its one-way journey, DART utilized  automous onboard navigator created by APL to stay on course. JPL’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), an element of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), was tasked to determine t only location of Didymos in within 16 miles (25 kilometres) but also when Dimorphos would be visible – and accessible – from DART’s direction of approach for mission to be successful. 

Technicians prepare to move NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) craft from a shipping container. Credit: NASA

DART consists of a passenger – a small craft contributed by Italian ncy (ASI). shoebox-sized LICIACube (Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids) had split apart from DART several days before DART’s impact with moonlet. 

"Dimorphos is a tiny asteroid," Tom Statler, mission's program scientist at NASA, said during news conference. "We've never seen it up close, we don't kw what it looks like, we don't kw what shape is. And that's just one of things that leads to technical challenges of DART. Hitting an asteroid is a tough thing to do.” JPL commentator Samson Reiny had called mission “history.”