NASA is on the brink of launch a spacecraft to check an experimental technique to deflect near-Earth objects, and you may take part within the mission by testing your individual planetary protection know-how.
The space company’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is designed to check a “kinetic impactor” method for deflecting any asteroid or comet which may in any other case affect Earth.
The mission, which might launch as early as Nov. 23, is focusing on a binary near-Earth asteroid known as Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos. The DART spacecraft will hit Dimorphos head-on in an try to maneuver it onto a barely totally different path and reveal the potential of utilizing this know-how to stop potential affect threats sooner or later.
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In preparation for the DART mission, you’ll be able to take a quiz online to find out should you’re able to turn out to be a planetary defender. The five-question quiz checks your data of asteroids, the DART mission and NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), which was established in 2016 to handle planetary protection efforts.
Once you full the quiz, you may obtain a digital certification stating you are able to be a planetary defender on NASA’s DART mission. You can obtain your certificates and planetary defender badge to share on social media utilizing the hashtags #PlanetaryDefender and #DARTMission.
The DART mission is slated to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Nov. 24 at 1:20 a.m. EST (0620 GMT, Nov. 23 at 10:20 p.m. native time) from Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) in California. DART arrived on the Vandenberg Space Force Base on Oct. 2, the place it has been present process ultimate pre-launch checks and checks forward of its flight.
Built and managed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL) in Maryland, the DART spacecraft will intentionally affect Dimorphos at speeds of 4.1 miles per second (6.6 km/s), or 14,760 mph (23,760 kph), inflicting the moonlet’s orbital pace to alter by a fraction of a p.c, in flip altering its orbit round Didymos.
The asteroid system, which presently lies 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth, doesn’t pose any danger to our planet. However, NASA will use ground-based telescopes to look at and measure any variations within the asteroid system following the DART take a look at affect, to evaluate whether or not this know-how can be utilized to deflect any doubtlessly hazardous near-Earth asteroids sooner or later.
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