Europa sends probe to asteroid in case Earth is ever in danger

A couple of years ago, at the end of September 2022, NASA sent a probe into space to collide with an asteroid with the intention of changing the orbit. Not so that it would pose a threat to the Earth, but as an experiment for possible future threats.

According to NASA Director Bill Nelson, the mission was a success. For the first time in history, the orbit of a planetary object was changed.

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Hector Farres

In particular, an asteroid Dimorphosabout 160 meters in diameter, which in turn rotates around Didymoslarger asteroid.

When NASA’s DART probe struck at a speed of about 24,000 kilometers per hour, in addition to changing its shape, the asteroid began to move around Didymos about 32 minutes less, a larger reduction than NASA expected.

Explore the crash site to improve the Earth’s defenses.

Now the European Space Agency’s Hera mission wants to study the area where NASA’s probe fell two years ago.

The broken rock will be examined in detail to help researchers improve strategies to protect Earth if the planet is one day threatened by an asteroid.

Hera, if weather conditions permit and there are no other setbacks, which is not at all clear, will be launched into space on Monday, October 7, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. If all goes as expected, the probe will pass in front of Mars in March and reach the asteroid, about 11 million kilometers from Earth, in December 2026.

More information required

Although the mission dart NASA was successful as the first test of Earth defense, the scientific community needs more information about the impact two years ago and know in detail what happened and what effects it had on the asteroid.

It was possible to change the orbit Dimorphos even more effective than expected, but now we must ensure that what was learned at that time will be useful in the future if asteroids have to be diverted from other characteristics that may threaten us.

This article was originally published by RAC1.

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