NASA is testing whether it could deflect an asteroid from its course by targeting an astronomical object called Dimorphos. The experiment works so far. Whether it was a success across the board will only be known later.
For the first time, a probe from the US space agency NASA intentionally crashed into an asteroid during a defense test. The unmanned probe of the mission “Dart” (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), equipped only with a camera, steered into the asteroid Dimorphos as planned on Tuesday night, as NASA announced. This is a first attempt to see if it might be possible to alter the trajectory of an asteroid in this way.
According to NASA calculations, Dimorphos, a kind of moon of the asteroid Didymos with a diameter of around 160 meters, currently poses no danger to Earth – and the mission is designed in such a way that the asteroid should not pose a danger even after the probe’s impact. From the approximately 330 million dollar mission, NASA hopes to find out how the earth could be protected from approaching asteroids.
The extent to which the targeted collision will succeed in diverting the asteroid from its orbit will only be known in a few weeks or months. Telescopes on Earth and satellites in space will observe Dimorphos and measure whether it orbits Didymos slightly faster than before after the experiment. If so, the orbit has been successfully modified.
