The largest of the asteroids, Didymos A, is a stone (silicon) asteroid of class S, it is the second most common class of asteroids after carbon, it is 17% of all known asteroids. The Didymos system has been carefully studied since 2003. A DART probe will strike the smaller one. This is a double asteroid Didymos, which consists of two bodies: Didymos A with a size of about 780 m and Didymos B with a size of about 160 m. The target for the DART strike will be an asteroid, which will fly at a distance of 10.9 million km from Earth in October 2022. “The current approval is moving the project closer to the historical test of a small asteroid that does not threaten Earth.” “DART will be NASA’s first mission to demonstrate what is known as a kinetic impact technique - hitting an asteroid to move its orbit,” said Lindley Johnson, a planetary defense officer at NASA headquarters in Washington. Until recently, the project existed only in the form of a concept, but on June 23, 2017, the leadership of NASA approved the concept and allowed to proceed to the next phase - preliminary design. For the test, they will choose a cosmic body, which does not really threaten the Earth, but whose trajectory can be measured and verified whether the plan will work in the event of a real threat. This bureau will issue warnings to the inhabitants of the Earth about a possible collision, and it will plan and coordinate with the US government the operation to reject the asteroid.ĭART is an experiment, how realistic is it to perform such an operation and reject a medium-sized asteroid.
It is engaged in the search and cataloging of asteroids and comets, which will fly past the Earth and carry potential danger. To assess and create protection from asteroid impact in the past year, NASA has established the Coordinating Bureau of Planetary Defense (Planetary Defense Coordination Office, PDCO). To begin with, technology will be tested on a medium-sized asteroid, which can lead not to a global, but only to a regional catastrophe on Earth. As reported, about 93% of such objects have already been entered into the database.Īt the same time, NASA is working on a DART program (Double Asteroid Redirection Test)on the deviation of the asteroid's trajectory. To prevent a catastrophe, NASA tracks potentially dangerous asteroids, whose orbits pass near the Earth. What to do if an asteroid of this size goes to Earth? According to experts, to cause a global effect for the entire terrestrial ecosystem, an asteroid must have a diameter of more than 1 km. Only large asteroids, which are much rarer, can hit the surface.
Most of them do not reach the surface, disintegrate in the upper layers of the atmosphere and burn. Almost every day small asteroids fly to Earth.