DART: The Impacts Of Slamming A Spacecraft Into An Asteroid
“The DART mission, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, is essentially our first test of a kinetic impact for planetary defense.” says Cristina Thomas, assistant professor of Astronomy and Planetary Science at Northern Arizona University.
‘Planet Killer’ Asteroid Spotted That Poses Distant Risk to Earth
Several [asteroids] no doubt sneak about near Mercury and Venus. But it’s “incredibly difficult to discover objects interior to Earth’s orbit with our current discovery telescopes,” Dr. Thomas said. During most hours of the day, the sun blinds Earth’s telescopes and objects can be hunted only in the few minutes around twilight.
The students are on a multidisciplinary team led by associate professor Christopher Edwards, co-led by professor David Trilling, postdoctoral scholar Chris Haberle and associate professor Michael Shafer. They are building the cameras during classes with the goal of having fully flight-qualified instruments by March 2023.
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On Monday [Sept. 26]at 4:13 p.m. (Arizona time), more than 7 million miles away, NASA’s DART mission, Double Asteroid Redirection Test, successfully slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos, making history as the first step toward a possible future planetary defense strategy (NAU Review, Sept. 28).
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For asteroid scientists, their work is just beginning.
By design, the crash occurred when the asteroids were fairly close to Earth.
That allowed telescopes on Earth to get a good look. About 40 of them were pointed at… Read more
On Monday, [Sept. 26], at 4:13 p.m. (Arizona time), more than 7 million miles away, NASA’s DART mission, Double Asteroid Redirection Test, successfully slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos, making history as the first step toward a possible future planetary defense strategy.
Cristina Thomas, assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science and team lead on the DART mission, along with Jason Wilder, vice president for research, were at Mission control in Laurel, Maryland to witness… Read more
“It’s going to be thrilling—and very stressful—but ultimately, I think we’re going to learn a lot,” says Cristina Thomas, a planetary scientist at Northern Arizona University who leads the observation team for the DART mission.
Read the full article here!