This Is What Happened When NASA Tried to Hit and Deflect an Asteroid with a Spacecraft

In 2022, NASA tested humanity’s ability to knock an asteroid off-course as part of the DART mission. And it didn’t go quite as expected.

Transcript

00:00There are over 30,000 space rocks hurtling through near-Earth space, according to the

00:09European Space Agency.

00:11And if we don't want to go the way of the dinos someday, we may have to take matters

00:15into our own hands.

00:17That was the general idea behind NASA's DART mission, which, after years of careful planning,

00:22tested humanity's ability to deflect an asteroid with a spacecraft in September of 2022.

00:29And we have impact!

00:31As Science Alert reports, the data is in and the results appear better than expected.

00:36According to research from Northern Arizona University, asteroid Demorphis, target of

00:41the DART mission, was shifted from its 12-hour orbit of larger asteroid Didymus by a total

00:47of 33 minutes, a much larger change than NASA's projected 7-minute alteration to its orbit.

00:55Studying material ejected from the asteroid after impact, the Planetary Science Institute

01:00found that Demorphis ejected twin tails of dust, like a dry comet.

01:05A study by SETI found that the asteroid lost 0.3 to 0.5 percent of its total mass, based

01:12on the brightness of the light reflecting off its surface, with the ejected debris accounting

01:17for most of the change in its orbit, transferring even more momentum than the collision itself,

01:22per John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

01:27The findings, which suggest the means to deflect asteroids are within humanity's grasp, were

01:31published across a series of five papers in the journal Nature.

01:35Thankfully, no known asteroids will endanger our planet for another 100 years.

01:40Hopefully by then, with enough reconnaissance, we'll be ready.