According to Sources, On September 26, NASA will make an effort to ram into an asteroid and divert it. A 500 kg spacecraft called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will collide with the binary asteroid 65803 Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos named “Didymoon” in attempt to change their trajectory.
DART which was launched in November 2021, and will collide with Didymos and Didymoon in September at a speed of almost 15,000 mph.
However, Didymos and Didymoon are not dangerous to Earth. NASA’s DART project is only an effort to protect Earth from space rocks that could be more dangerous.
About Didymos :
While Didymos and Dimorphos are the names of the two rocks separately, Didymos is the name of a pair of asteroids. Dimorphos also circles once in every 11 hours and 55 minutes around Didymos. Comparing to Didymos’ 2,560 feet, Dimorphos is a smaller asteroid, measuring only 525 feet.
For many years, earth-based telescopes have been able to monitor that movement “just like clockwork”. The brightness of the system may be monitored by telescopes all around the world when Dimorphos travels between Didymos and Earth.
The Didymos system’s clockwork motions make it ideal for the DART mission. NASA will veer dangerous asteroids off track in order to stop them from colliding with Earth. Although Didymos poses no threat to Earth, it will be used as a test target.
image credit : shutterstock
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