DART: a planetary-defense mission to save us all?

Asteroid impacts can and do happen. Events like Tunguska in 1908 and Chelyabinsk in 2013 are good reminders that space is full of Near-Earth Asteroids that could one day significantly impact our planet, destroying an area as big as the largest cities. Several technologies to deflect asteroids have been proposed under the umbrella of the Planetary Defense program. DART will be the first planetary defense mission to test a method of deflection called a kinetic impactor. DART will launch between November 2021 and February 2022 and will arrive at the near-Earth asteroid Didymos in September 2022. The spacecraft won't slow down, intentionally crashing into the asteroid's small moon Dimorphos. The crash should change the time it takes Dimorphos to orbit Didymos, proving whether the kinetic impactor technique works.

We invited planetary astronomer Andy Rivkin of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and one of two investigative team leads on DART, to discuss this mission, its goals, and objectives with Franck Marchis, SETI Institute Senior Astronomer & Chief Scientific Officer at Unistellar.

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Видео DART: a planetary-defense mission to save us all? канала SETI Institute