NASA crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid tonight

[Shaun @ Tru6]

NASA is about to crash a spacecraft into an asteroid

Watch tonight here at 7:14 NASA Live: Official Stream of NASA TV

NASA is set to slam a spacecraft into a little asteroid on Monday evening in an attempt to redirect it.

Why it matters: The first-of-it-kind mission — called DART — marks the first true test of whether or not NASA will one day be able to push a potentially dangerous asteroid off a collision course with Earth if the need should ever arise.

"It's quite frankly the first time that we are able to demonstrate that we have not only the knowledge of the hazards posed by these asteroids and comets that are left over from the formation of the solar system, but also have the technology that we could deflect one from a course inbound to impact the Earth," Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA, said during a press conference last week.

What's happening: DART's target is Dimorphos, an asteroid moonlet circling the larger asteroid Didymos. (Neither of these asteroids pose a threat to Earth.)

The probe is expected to collide with Dimorphos at 7:14pm ET on Monday.

Scientists will use other telescopes to measure just how much the impact throws off Dimorphos' orbit around Didymos. The Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope will also keep eyes on the system to see if they can observe the impact.

Mission managers should receive photos from the impactor as it makes its approach to Dimorphos up until it hits the asteroid.

The big picture: So far, city or planet destroying asteroids on collision courses with Earth have been relegated to blockbuster films.

But it's possible one of those large space rocks could one day be found heading toward our planet.
NASA's DART mission will provide key data to scientists and engineers about how to potentially scale up the technology to deflect an asteroid if it's ever needed.

[T77911S]

i live in SC. i happened to see this glow with a big contrail behind that did not look "normal"
i thought man that looks like a rocket. sure enough.

it was SOOO beautiful. the sky was crystal clear, the sun was down enough to make the sky a beautiful red sky but light enough to see it clearly.

[Tobra]

Seems like pushing it would be more effective than crashing into it. I guess if you can get your projectile moving fast enough

[T77911S]

i wonder if bruce willis was there tech advisor.

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by Tobra

Seems like pushing it would be more effective than crashing into it. I guess if you can get your projectile moving fast enough

LaForge used a warp field envelope to alter an asteroids mass so that the Enterprise could move it.

[stevej37]

If it won't budge it....use the Artemis
oh wait..it's not ready.

[bivenator]

I hope this doesn't "butterfly effect" the rest of the solar system.

[fisher22]

Interested to see if the amount of energy transfer is effective enough, or even perceptible on the mass of an asteroid.
We’ll see.

[KFC911]

41K folks are viewing the live feed currently... I think I'll join them in a bit.

What's next.... a big azz cork to plug Yellowstone?

Silly wabbits

[Sooner or later]

I'm watching.

[fisher22]

At 6.5 million miles away, we now have “precision lock” on the target asteroid.

[Sooner or later]

The image slowly getting bigger and bigger.

[JackDidley]

Live on the Discovery channel now.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

That was amazing!

[Sooner or later]

Boom!

[JackDidley]

Originally Posted by Shaun @ Tru6

That was amazing!

Direct hit, but did it change the path of the asteroid ?

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by Shaun @ Tru6

That was amazing!

Yes indeed! Thanks for posting this thread and link .

[fisher22]

Dead center. Planetary Defense history was made.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by JackDidley

Direct hit, but did it change the path of the asteroid ?

I'm sure there will be follow up so time will tell.

Did anyone else see the Little Prince wide-eyed and waving his arms?

[flatbutt]

That was amazing. More so when you realize that the probe was self steering. Watching Didymos go from a pixilated image to high resolution of individual boulders in about 10 minutes gave me a real sense of its' speed. Now the science starts.