Far out cosmology: we can stop asteroids from hitting Earth (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, March 01, 2023, 18:12 (420 days ago) @ David Turell

Follow up on DART:

https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-slammed-a-spacecraft-into-an-asteroid-and-it-didnt-go...

"A series of five papers describing this course deflection, and the mechanisms behind it, have been published in Nature.

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"One way we might deflect any large asteroids coming our way is by smashing into approaching rocks with a speeding spacecraft. The transfer of momentum from the spacecraft to the asteroid could alter its trajectory through space just enough to steer it away from its destiny with Earth's surface.

"The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was an attempt to see if this was feasible. The target was carefully chosen: Dimorphos, a moonlet orbiting a larger asteroid called Didymos. Because the orbital period of the two objects has been well characterized, any change in Dimorphos' trajectory would be detectable as a change in its orbital period.

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"'DART's impact," they write, "demonstrates that the momentum transfer to a target asteroid can significantly exceed the incident momentum of the kinetic impactor, validating the effectiveness of kinetic impact for preventing future asteroid strikes on the Earth."

"Finally, a team led by planetary scientist Terik Daly of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory reconstructed the impact event from the collected data, including the timeline leading up to the impact, a detailed characterization of the impact site, and the size and shape of Dimorphos.

"Their findings are promising. Humanity can successfully deflect an asteroid from its course with limited knowledge of its composition and surface conditions, without conducting an expensive and lengthy reconnaissance mission first.

"An asteroid deflection mission, ideally, would be conducted decades in advance of the projected impact. Fortunately, time is a resource we have plenty of right now: no asteroids that we know of will threaten Earth for at least 100 years. This gives us time for a number of reconnaissance missions to any peripheral threats, which would improve the chances of successful deflection should anything change in the far future.

"In light of that, the information we have from DART is invaluable. It will contribute towards modeling and planning future asteroid deflections, if we need them, for better predictions of the outcomes of exploding spaceships into space rocks.

""The successful impact of the DART spacecraft with Dimorphos and the resulting change in Dimorphos's orbit," Daly and his team write, "demonstrates that kinetic impactor technology is a viable technique to potentially defend Earth if necessary.'"

Comment: I assume God set up the universe the way it had to be as it evolved to allow the Earth to appear. Note how advanced humans have become to defend us from asteroids. And dhw doesn't think we are God's main purpose as we are here to defend everything God created on Earth. I can't change dhw's rigidity.