{"id":129326,"date":"2021-10-21T17:56:25","date_gmt":"2021-10-22T00:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/10\/nasas-armageddon-style-asteroid-deflection-mission-takes-off-in-november"},"modified":"2021-10-21T17:56:25","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T00:56:25","slug":"nasas-armageddon-style-asteroid-deflection-mission-takes-off-in-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/10\/nasas-armageddon-style-asteroid-deflection-mission-takes-off-in-november","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s \u2018Armageddon\u2019-style asteroid deflection mission takes off in November"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/nasas-armageddon-style-asteroid-deflection-mission-takes-off-in-november3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>NASA has a launch date for that most Hollywood of missions, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, which is basically a dry run of the movie \u201cArmageddon.\u201d Unlike the film, this will not involve nukes, oil rigs or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ujMxXOHJloI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">Aerosmith<\/a>, but instead is a practical test of our ability to change the trajectory of an asteroid in a significant and predictable way.<\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ujMxXOHJloI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The DART mission, managed by the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (!), involves sending a pair of satellites out to a relatively nearby pair of asteroids, known as the Didymos binary. It\u2019s one large-ish asteroid, approximately 780 meters across \u2014 that\u2019s Didymos proper \u2014 and a 160-meter \u201cmoonlet\u201d in its orbit.<\/p>\n<p>As the moonlet is more typical of the type likely to threaten Earth \u2014 there being more asteroids that are that size and not easily observed \u2014 we will be testing the possibility of intercepting one by smashing into it at nearly 15,000 miles per hour. This will change the speed of the moonlet by a mere fraction of a percent, but enough that its orbit period will be affected measurably. Knowing exactly how much will help us plan any future asteroid-deflection missions \u2014 not surprisingly, there isn\u2019t a lot of existing science on ramming your spacecraft into space rocks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA has a launch date for that most Hollywood of missions, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, which is basically a dry run of the movie \u201cArmageddon.\u201d Unlike the film, this will not involve nukes, oil rigs or Aerosmith, but instead is a practical test of our ability to change the trajectory of an asteroid in [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,12,2028],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asteroid-comet-impacts","category-existential-risks","category-satellites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}