NASA’s DART mission successfully shifted an asteroid’s solar orbit, proving we can deflect threats, though experts warn we lack a permanent defence system
NASA has officially proven it can play cosmic billiards with the fate of the world after a “kamikaze” spacecraft successfully knocked an asteroid out of its original path.
Four years ago, the space agency intentionally crashed a probe into a distant space rock to see if humans could steer a potential doomsday threat away from Earth. New data now confirms the mission was a success, shifting not just the asteroid’s local path, but its entire orbit around the Sun.
The mission, known as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), saw a spacecraft slam into a moonlet named Dimorphos back in 2022. While Dimorphos was never actually a threat to us, it served as the perfect crash-test dummy.
Scientists already knew they had shortened Dimorphos’s lap around its bigger brother, Didymos. However, a fresh study published in Science Advances reveals that the impact was so powerful it nudged the entire duo into a brand-new trajectory around the Sun.
The team of international researchers wrote in their new paper: “This study marks a notable step forward in our ability to prevent future asteroid impacts on Earth.” NASA hailed the feat as “the first time a human-made object has measurably altered the path of a celestial body around the Sun.”
While the shift in the asteroids’ orbit was merely 0.15 seconds, experts say that minor shift is the difference between a direct hit and a lucky escape for Earth.
Thomas Statler, lead scientist for solar system small bodies at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said: “This is a tiny change to the orbit, but given enough time, even a tiny change can grow to a significant deflection.”
To track the microscopic victory, researchers relied on a global army of volunteer astronomers. The citizen scientists watched for stellar occultations, the split second a star dims as an asteroid passes in front of it, to pin down the rock’s exact position and speed.
Lead author Rahil Makadia confirmed that his team was able to “measure what this change was exactly,” making computations that could assist with future “planetary defence efforts.” The successful experiment proves that “kinetic impact” is a viable way to save the world.
Statler added: “The team’s amazingly precise measurement again validates kinetic impact as a technique for defending Earth against asteroid hazards and shows how a binary asteroid might be deflected by impacting just one member of the pair.” Despite the success, space boffins recently revealed an estimated 15,000 medium-sized space rocks are currently lurking in the shadows undetected.
DART’s own boss issued a chilling warning in February that if a real threat appeared tomorrow, there is no “Plan B” sitting on a launchpad ready to go. Dr. Nancy Chabot, the DART mission chief from Johns Hopkins University, said: “We worry about these city killer asteroids. Dart was a great demonstration but we don’t have that sitting around ready to go if there was a threat we needed to use it for.
“We don’t know where 50% of the 140-metre asteroids are, which is a concern. We would not have any way to go and actively deflect one right now. We could be prepared but I don’t see that investment being made.”
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