Researched
DART: First Asteroid Deflection
On 26 September 2022 NASA's DART probe hit the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos at 6.6 km/s and shortened its orbit by about 32 minutes: the first time humans changed a celestial body's motion.
Open in the interactive tree →DART, launched on 24 November 2021, steered itself into Dimorphos with onboard navigation software for the last hours. Telescopes on Earth timed the mutual eclipses of Dimorphos and its larger partner Didymos and found the orbit shortened from about 11 hours 55 minutes by roughly 32 to 33 minutes, against a minimum goal of 73 seconds. Rock thrown off by the impact added to the push, giving about 3.6 times the spacecraft's own momentum. ESA's Hera probe, launched in October 2024, is to survey the crater and measure Dimorphos's mass.
Prerequisites
- Deep-Space Probes (Voyager)1977Deep-space probe technology flew the spacecraft to the target.
Unlocks
- Planetary DefenseopenDART is the only real deflection test the plan rests on.