Tag : DART

Washington: NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is the world's first full-scale planetary defence test against potential asteroid impacts on Earth. Researchers now show that instead of leaving behind a relatively small crater, the impact of the DART spacecraft on its target could leave the asteroid near unrecognizable. 66 million years ago, a giant asteroid impact on the Earth likely caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Currently no known asteroid poses an immediate threat. But if one day a large asteroid were to be discovered on a collision course with Earth, it might have to be deflected from its trajectory to prevent catastrophic consequences. Last November, the DART space probe of the US space agency NASA was launched as a first full-scale experiment of such a manoeuvre: Its mission is to collide with an asteroid and to deflect it from its orbit, in order to provide valuable information for the development of such a planetary defense system. In a new study published in The Planetary Science Journal, researchers of the University of Bern and the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS have simulated this impact with a new method. Their results indicate that it may deform its target far more severely than previously thought. Rubble instead of solid rock "Contrary to what one might imagine when picturing an asteroid, direct evidence from space missions like the Japanese space agency's (JAXA) Hayabusa2 probe demonstrate that asteroid can have a very loose internal structure -- similar to a pile of rubble -- that is held together by gravitational interactions and small cohesive forces," says study lead-author Sabina Raducan from the Institute of Physics and the National Centre of Competence in ...