U.S. officials have long invoked Bruce Willis’ name in the interests of planetary security. At a 2013 Senate hearing with experts to discuss the threat that asteroids pose to Earth, noted hum…
Tonight’s test is scheduled to at 10:21 p.m. PT. Light displays from Vandenberg-originating rockets usually appear over Los Angeles very shortly after liftoff., mission, “the world’s first full-scale planetary defense test, demonstrating one method of asteroid deflection technology.” It’s been years in the making.
The spacecraft loaded onto the Musk-made rocket is, according to NASA, “designed to impact an asteroid as a test of technology to see if it can change the motion of an asteroid in space. The goal of the mission is to see if intentionally crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid is an effective way to change its course, should an Earth-threatening asteroid be discovered in the future. DART’s target is the binary near-Earth asteroid Didymos and its moonlet, which pose no threat to Earth.
More recently in February 2013, a meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia “creating an airburst and shockwave that struck six cities across that country,” according to NASA. The Chelyabinsk object was “just about 60 feet wide,” according to the agency, “demonstrating that even small asteroids can be of concern — and making real-world tests of space-based planetary defense systems all the more important.”NASA estimates there are thousands of asteroids 500-feet wide or more near Earth.
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