Just look at the moon: crater after crater. It’s true that a smaller cosmic fragment that would burn up in Earth’s atmosphere also leaves a mark on the Moon’s surface. Despite this, there is also a lot of scum around us that could wipe out life from Earth. It wouldn’t be the first time in the history of our home planet. In the fall of 2023, a batch of cosmic material was brought to Earth by the asteroid Bennu, which could hit the Earth within 300 years.
However, Didymos is a distant minor planet around which its companion Dimorphos orbits. Neither poses a threat to Earth. Edward Reynolds was the manager of the NASA project during which a 170 m diameter Dimorphos spacecraft was launched into a head-on collision in November 2021. The name of the DART project, called Darts, comes from the abbreviation of the English ” Double Asteroid Redirection Experiment”.
On September 26, 2023, a cosmic arrow the size of a small car hit Dimorphos in its opposite path. At a safe distance from Earth, celestial fireworks cut Dimorphos’ orbital period, previously nearly 12 hours, by 33 minutes. Now humanity also has more hope of dealing with guests like Bennu: for this, however, we must have the necessary energy in reserve and the will in our pockets. In a serious threat, one arrow is not enough.
2023-12-14 15:00:00
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