{"id":64647,"date":"2021-11-23T09:28:49","date_gmt":"2021-11-23T16:28:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=64647"},"modified":"2021-11-23T09:35:05","modified_gmt":"2021-11-23T16:35:05","slug":"thomas-dart-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/thomas-dart-launch\/","title":{"rendered":"DART launch could be key step forward in planetary defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s latest launch into outer space\u00a0is going to make an impact. In fact, that\u2019s its entire mission.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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DART<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0(Double Asteroid Redirection Test), which is scheduled to launch at 10:20 p.m. PST on Nov. 23 out of\u00a0Vandenberg Air Force Base in California,\u00a0is NASA\u2019s first planetary defense mission. This mission\u00a0will demonstrate asteroid deflection via kinetic impact. The goal is to collide with the target to see how the orbit changes.\u00a0It\u2019s a test run to see if such a plan is feasible should we find an asteroid on a collision course with Earth one day.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Cristina Thomas<\/strong>, an assistant professor of astronomy and planetary sciences at Northern Arizona University\u00a0and\u00a0lead of the DART Observations Working Group, is excited to see\u00a0the effects of the impact. She and her international team have been working for years to obtain a precise pre-impact orbit of\u00a0Dimorphos, the satellite asteroid, around\u00a0Didymos, the primary asteroid in a near-Earth asteroid system.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Near-Earth, of course, is relative; the planet is in no danger from\u00a0Didymos. However, an asteroid heading toward Earth is possible, and scientists throughout the world are working on ways to identify these potential threats and\u00a0how\u00a0to\u00a0mitigate\u00a0them. If this mission goes according to plan,\u00a0this technique, called kinetic impact deflection,\u00a0could be an important piece of a planetary defense system.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cDART is a critical next step for planetary defense,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cIt is,\u00a0on the surface,\u00a0a simple test, but we will not completely understand what will happen until we do it.\u201d<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Using data from 2003,\u00a0when the satellite was discovered,\u00a0through early 2021,\u00a0the working group has\u00a0been able to precisely constrain the characteristics of the orbit and the position of\u00a0Dimorphos\u00a0in the orbit at the time of impact in fall 2022.\u00a0They take\u00a0repeated images of the same object, which shows\u00a0dips in brightness when the satellite passes in\u202ffront of or behind the primary.\u00a0The timing of these brightness dips, called mutual events, allows the scientists\u00a0to determine the orbital period of the satellite.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is essentially thinking of the satellite\u00a0Dimorphos\u00a0as a clock,\u00a0which\u00a0will return to its position in front of or behind\u00a0Didymos\u00a0at consistent intervals,\u201d Thomas said.\u00a0\u201cOur working group will begin observations again in the months prior to the DART impact. We want to have the most complete picture of the current orbit before we change it through impact.\u201d<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Thomas will be\u00a0in California for the launch, and she and her team will continue to do\u00a0observations after\u00a0the collision\u00a0to determine the change in the orbital period caused by the spacecraft’s impact.\u00a0Follow her\u00a0on Twitter at\u00a0<\/span><\/span>@cathomas09<\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0for live tweets leading up to the launch.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What is DART?<\/span><\/b><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Double Asteroid Redirection Test is the world\u2019s first full-scale planetary defense test, demonstrating one method of asteroid deflection technology. DART is a focused mission, proving that a spacecraft can autonomously navigate to a target asteroid and intentionally collide with it (called a kinetic impact) at roughly 4 miles per second (6 kilometers per second). Its target\u00a0is the asteroid moonlet\u00a0Dimorphos\u00a0(Greek for \u201ctwo forms\u201d), which orbits a larger asteroid named\u00a0Didymos\u00a0(Greek for \u201ctwin\u201d).\u00a0As part of NASA\u2019s larger planetary defense strategy, DART will simultaneously test new technologies and provide important data to enhance modeling and predictive capabilities and help\u00a0scientists\u00a0better prepare for an asteroid that might pose a threat to Earth, should one be discovered.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s latest launch into outer space\u00a0is going to make an impact. In fact, that\u2019s its entire mission.\u00a0 \u00a0 DART\u00a0(Double Asteroid Redirection Test), which is scheduled to launch at 10:20 p.m. PST on Nov. 23 out of\u00a0Vandenberg Air Force Base in California,\u00a0is NASA\u2019s first planetary defense mission. This mission\u00a0will demonstrate asteroid deflection via kinetic impact. The…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":64648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}