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<ul><li>Asteroid 2019 SR8 will be flying past Earth today.<br /></li><li>The asteroid will be travelling over ten times as fast as a rifle bullet.<br /></li><li>It is around half the size of the Statue of Liberty.<br /></li></ul>The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch/">Asteroid Watch</a> is on the lookout for an asteroid that will be zooming past Earth. And, it is faster than a bullet.<br /><br />The speed of an average rifle bullet is 3,276 kilometers per hour (kmph) but Asteroid 2019 SR8 will be flying at more than ten times that speed — at 35,350 kmph.<br /><br /><strong>Size matters<br /></strong><br />On the one hand, Asteroid 2019 SR8 isn’t a very <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/the-10-biggest-asteroids-that-could-crash-into-earth-this-year/articleshow/70686096.cms">big asteroid</a>. It measures between 20 meters to 44 meters in diameter — that’s half the height of the Statue of Liberty. On the other, its closest approach to Earth will only be 5 million kilometers from the planet. <br /><br />This may seem like a large distance but it’s enough for NASA to classify the incoming asteroid as a ‘close approach’ or a ‘near-Earth object’. It’s one of the many Apollo asteroids — an asteroid that orbits around the Sun and the Earth — to come visit.<br /><br /><strong>Final impact<br /></strong><br />Even though Asteroid 2019 SR8 will be under the close, watchful eye of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), the probability of an actual <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-other-scientists-believe-asteroids-will-eventually-hit-earth/articleshow/70644547.cms">asteroid impact</a> is low.<br /><br />Should the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/asteroid-hitting-earth-and-ending-life-has-to-be-bigger-than-the-one-that-killed-dinosaurs/articleshow/70893317.cms">asteroid’s trajectory change</a>, its small size dictates that it will probably break up in Earth’s atmosphere.<br /><br />That isn’t to say an asteroid exploding mid-air won’t be harmful. It will still produce a large amount of energy equivalent to multiple nuclear explosions.<br /><br /><strong>See also:<br /></strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/ufologist-claims-the-god-of-chaos-asteroid-will-strike-somewhere-over-europe/articleshow/71537022.cms">Ufologist claims the ‘God of Chaos’ asteroid will strike somewhere over Europe</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/asteroid-gets-caught-changing-colours-for-the-very-first-time/articleshow/70942978.cms">Asteroid gets caught changing colours for the very first time</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/the-10-biggest-asteroids-that-could-crash-into-earth-this-year/articleshow/70686096.cms">The 10 biggest asteroids that could crash into Earth in 2019</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />

Asteroid flying faster than a bullet will shoot past Earth today

<ul class="summary-list"><li>An <keyword id="12966076" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroid" source="Orion">asteroid</keyword> the size of the Empire State Building is expected to fly past <keyword id="11996554" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="earth" source="Orion">Earth</keyword> next week. </li><li><keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword> has classified the huge <keyword id="11895441" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="space" source="Orion">space</keyword> rock as "potentially hazardous." </li></ul><p>A massive <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-simulated-asteroid-couldnt-stop-impact-europe-2021-5">asteroid</a> is heading towards Earth.</p><p>But don't worry, the asteroid won't hit the planet like in the Netflix movie <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dont-look-up-is-one-of-netflix-biggest-movies-ever-2022-1">"Don't Look Up."</a> In fact, it will travel approximately 1.2 million miles away from Earth-- that's over five times <a href="https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/moon-distance/">the distance between the Earth and the moon</a>-- and is expected to pass by on Tuesday.</p><p>Asteroid 7482 (1994 PC1), is a little over a half-mile wide, around the size of the Empire State Building, and has been tracked by NASA scientists since it was <a href="https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/science/huge-asteroid-the-size-of-empire-state-building-to-fly-past-earth-heres-how-you-can-track-it/2407754/">discovered by astronomer RH McNaught in 1994</a>. The asteroid is one of <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/11/29/asteroid-december-january-near-earth/8796599002/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">several large asteroids to pass by Earth in recent weeks</a>. </p><p>"Near-Earth asteroid 1994 PC1 is very well known and has been studied for decades by our planetary defense experts," NASA posted to Twitter on Wednesday. "Rest assured, 1994 PC1 will safely fly past our planet."</p><p>1994 PC1 is considered "potentially hazardous" by NASA because it crosses Earth's orbit, according to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/01/13/massive-potentially-hazardous-asteroid-zoom-past-earth/9178074002/">USA TODAY</a>.</p><p>The asteroid would cause a "complete catastrophe" if it were to hit the Earth because it has more energy than a nuclear blast, Franck Marchis, the Chief Scientific Officer at Unistellar and Senior Planetary Astronomer at the SETI Institute, explained to USA TODAY. Although 1994 PC1 sounds dangerous, there is no need to be concerned.</p><p>To <keyword id="6359835" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="watch" source="Orion">watch</keyword> 1994 PC1 pass by Earth, anyone with a backyard telescope of about 6 inches or wider in diameter and an app to help watch the sky should be able to see the asteroid pass at about 43,754 miles per hour, according to <a href="https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-track-the-giant-asteroid-1994-pc1-about-to-pass-by-earth/">CNET</a>.</p><p>For those without a telescope, <a href="https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/asteroids/#/asteroids/watch/7482_1994_pc1">NASA's Eyes website</a> will also offer a visual and a count down to help <keyword id="12215762" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="track" source="Orion">track</keyword> the passing of the asteroid. The <a href="https://www.virtualtelescope.eu/webtv/">Virtual Telescope Project</a> will also offer a live stream of the asteroid passing by.</p><p>1994 PC1 orbits the sun every 1.5 years, according to <a href="https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=7482">NASA</a>. The asteroid won't come this close to Earth again until 2105.</p>

A massive asteroid the size of the Empire State Building is about to pass Earth. Here's how to track it.

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">Space</keyword> agencies around the world took part in a <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> <keyword id="67741" type="TECHNOLOGY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Simulation">simulation</keyword> of an asteroid-impact scenario.</li><li>The participating experts learned about a fictitious <keyword id="6549794" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroid">asteroid</keyword>'s trajectory and had to react.</li><li>In the exercise, they couldn't stop it from hitting Europe, showing how <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-neowise-surprise-appearance-earth-unprepared-for-asteroids-2020-7">unprepared we are for such a crisis</a>.</li></ul><p>Scientists around the world have been bamboozled this week by a fictitious asteroid heading toward Earth.</p><p>A group of experts from US and European space agencies attended a week-long exercise led by NASA in which they faced a hypothetical scenario: An asteroid 35 million miles away was approaching the planet and could hit within six months.</p><p>With each passing day of the exercise, the participants learned more about the asteroid's size, trajectory, and chance of impact. Then they had to cooperate and use their technological knowledge to see if anything could be done to stop the space rock.</p><p>The experts fell short. The group determined that none of Earth's existing technologies could stop the hypothetical asteroid from striking given the six-month timeframe of the simulation. In this alternate reality, the asteroid crashed into eastern Europe.</p><p>As far as we know, no asteroids currently pose a threat to Earth in this way. But an estimated two-thirds of asteroids 460 feet in size or bigger - large enough to wreak considerable havoc - <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/faq/">remain undiscovered</a>. That's why NASA and other agencies are attempting to prepare for such a situation. </p><p>"These exercises ultimately help the planetary-defense community communicate with each other and with our governments to ensure we are all coordinated should a potential impact threat be identified in the future," Lindley Johnson, NASA's planetary defense officer, <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-to-participate-in-tabletop-exercise-simulating-asteroid-impact">said in a press release</a>. </p><h2>6 months is not enough time to prepare for an asteroid impact</h2><p>The fictitious asteroid in the simulation was called 2021PDC. In NASA's scenario, it was first "spotted" on April 19, at which time it was thought to have a 5% of hitting our planet on October 20, six months after its discovery date. </p><p>But Day 2 of the exercise fast-forwarded to May 2, when new impact-trajectory calculations showed that 2021PDC would almost certainly hit either Europe or northern Africa. The participants in the simulation considered various missions in which spacecraft could try to destroy the asteroid or deflect it off its path.</p><div type="image" title="hypothetical impact" height="915" width="1120" msid="82344056" hostid="261"></div><p>But they concluded that such missions wouldn't be able to get off the ground in the short amount of time before the asteroid's impact.</p><p>"If confronted with the 2021PDC hypothetical scenario in real life, we would not be able us to launch any spacecraft on such short notice with current capabilities," <a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/pd/cs/pdc21/pdc21_day2_briefing2.pdf">the participants said</a>. </p><p>They also considered trying to blow up or disrupt the asteroid using a nuclear explosive device.</p><p>"Deploying a nuclear disruption mission could significantly reduce the risk of impact damage," they found.</p><p>Still, the simulation stipulated that 2021PDC could be anywhere from 114 feet to half a mile in size, so the chance that a nuke could make a dent was uncertain. </p><p>Day 3 of the exercise skipped ahead to June 30, and Earth's future looked grim: 2021PDC's impact trajectory showed it headed for eastern Europe. By Day 4, which fast-forwarded to a week before the asteroid impact, there was a 99% chance the asteroid would hit near the border between Germany, the Czech Republic, and Austria. The explosion would bring as much energy as a large nuclear bomb.</p><p>All that could be done was evacuate the affected regions ahead of time.</p><h2>Most asteroids fly under the radar, and many are spotted too late</h2><div type="image" title="dinosaur asteroid meteor" height="1017" width="1440" msid="82344057" hostid="261"></div><p>It's tempting to assume that in the real world, astronomers would spot an asteroid akin to 2021PDC with much more notice than six months. But the world's ability to surveil near-Earth objects (NEOs) is woefully incomplete.</p><p>Any space rock with an orbit that takes it within 125 million miles of the sun is considered an NEO. But Johnson said in July that NASA thinks "we've only found about a third of the population of asteroids that are out there that could represent an impact hazard to the Earth."</p><p>Of course, humanity hopes to avoid a surprise like the dinosaurs got 65 million years ago, when a 6-mile-wide asteroid crashed into the Earth. But in recent years, scientists have missed plenty of large, dangerous objects that came close.</p><div type="image" title="comet neowise japan" height="1406" width="2500" msid="82344060" hostid="261"></div><p>Comet Neowise, a 3-mile-wide chunk of space ice, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-neowise-surprise-appearance-earth-unprepared-for-asteroids-2020-7">passed with 64 million miles of Earth</a> in July. Nobody knew that comet existed until a NASA space telescope discovered it approaching four months prior.</p><p>In 2013, a meteor about 65 feet in diameter entered the atmosphere traveling 40,000 mph. It exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, without warning, sending out a shock wave that broke windows and damaged buildings across the region. More than 1,400 people were injured.</p><div type="image" title="asteroid russia Chelyabinsk" height="3744" width="5616" msid="82344061" hostid="261"></div><p>And in 2019, a 427-foot-wide, "city-killer" asteroid <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-flies-close-to-earth-surprising-scientists-2019-7">flew within 45,000 miles of Earth</a>. NASA had almost no warning about it.</p><p>That's because currently, the only way scientists can track an NEO is by pointing one of Earth's limited number of powerful telescopes in the right direction at the right time. </p><p>To address that problem, NASA announced two years ago that it would launch a new space telescope dedicated to watching for hazardous asteroids. That telescope, named the Near-Earth Object Surveillance Mission, along with the European Space Agency's newly launched <a href="https://www.esa.int/Safety_Security/Planetary_Defence/New_ESA_telescope_in_South_America_to_search_for_asteroids" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Test-Bed Telescope</a> and the <a href="https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2017/02/Flyeye_Observatory" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Flyeye Telescope</a> that's being built in Italy, should eventually bolster the number of NEOs we can track.</p><h2>NASA is testing ways to stymie an asteroid</h2><div type="image" title="DART nasa asteroid mission spacecraft" height="1406" width="2500" msid="82344065" hostid="261"></div><p>NASA has investigated the options scientists would have if they were to find a dangerous asteroid on a collision course with Earth. These include detonating an explosive device near the space rock, as the exercise participants suggested, or firing lasers that could heat up and vaporize the asteroid enough to change its path.</p><p>Another possibility is sending a spacecraft up to slam into an oncoming asteroid, thereby knocking it off its trajectory. This is the strategy NASA is most serious about: Later this year, the agency is scheduled to launch a test of such a technology. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (<keyword id="348209" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Dart">DART</keyword>) will send a spacecraft to the asteroid Dimorphos and purposefully hit it in the fall of 2022.</p><p>NASA hopes that collision will change Dimorphos's orbit. While that asteroid isn't a threat to Earth, the mission could prove that redirecting an asteroid is possible with enough lead time.</p>

In a NASA simulation of an asteroid impact, scientists concluded they couldn't stop a space rock from decimating Europe

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword> is sending a spacecraft to slam into a distant <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-hit-ancient-middle-eastern-city-inspired-sodom-bible-story-2021-9">asteroid</a>, nudging the <keyword id="11895441" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="space" source="Orion">space</keyword> rock into a new orbit.</li><li>The mission is testing a method NASA could use to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">divert city-killing asteroids</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-advances-asteroid-tracking-space-telescope-after-years-of-limbo-2021-6">headed for Earth</a>.</li></ul><p>NASA is about to launch a new space probe on a long journey to self-destruction.</p><p>The mission, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (<keyword id="12574842" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="dart" source="Orion">DART</keyword>), is sending a spacecraft traveling nearly 7 million miles to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">slam itself into an asteroid</a>. The probe, a 4-foot-wide box, is a pebble compared to the enormous Colosseum-sized asteroid it's aiming for. But the impact should give the space rock enough of a nudge to change its path orbiting a larger asteroid.</p><p>NASA is testing whether such a nudge could one day divert a rogue space rock headed for Earth. Scientists don't currently know of any dangerous Earth-bound <keyword id="12253294" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroids" source="Orion">asteroids</keyword>, but NASA estimates that they have only spotted about 40% of asteroids near Earth that are 140 meters (450 feet) or larger. Such an asteroid could level an entire city.</p><div type="image" title="asteroid dimorphos edited next to rome Colosseum showing they are the same size" height="2418" width="2000" msid="87821856" hostid="261"></div><p>DART is set to begin its journey at 1:20 a.m. ET on Wednesday, lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. If all goes according to plan, it will reach its destination in September 2022.</p><p>NASA is livestreaming the launch on YouTube, starting at 12:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday. Watch, below:</p><p>DART is a two-pronged test of a planetary-defense method, according to Tom Statler, a NASA astrophysicist working on the mission.</p><p>"The first test is testing our technological ability to hit the asteroid. And the second test is testing the response of a real asteroid to being hit. The first test ends and the second test starts at the moment that the spacecraft is smashed to bits," Statler told Insider. </p><p>The asteroid's response to the impact will help NASA determine how large future probes should be in order to move their targets.</p><h2>NASA could save Earth from a city-killing asteroid — with 5 to 10 years' advanced notice</h2><p>For 10 months, DART will speed toward a pair of asteroids. One, a moonlet called Dimorphos, orbits the other, Didymos. DART is aiming for the moonlet. At 525 feet wide, it's much smaller than its 2,500-foot companion.</p><p>Neither Didymos nor Dimorphos poses a threat to Earth. But they're ideal for testing what NASA calls the "kinetic impactor" method — crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid at high speeds to nudge it in a different direction.</p><div type="image" title="dart mission chart showing size of spacecraft and two asteroids compared to world landmarks" height="1667" width="3187" msid="87821858" hostid="261"></div><p>It's a tricky feat, given that DART won't be able to see Dimorphos until an hour before impact. But NASA engineers have programmed the spacecraft to quickly calculate the asteroid's center and steer itself towards that point.</p><p>The spacecraft should hit Dimorphos's center at 15,000 miles per hour (4 miles per second), transferring its kinetic energy to the asteroid and pushing it closer to Didymos. NASA estimates that the impact will cause an explosion of between 22,000 and 220,000 pounds of rock material, which could give it an even bigger push than DART itself. In the end, Dimorphos should orbit the larger rock about 10 minutes faster than before.</p><p>Although the impact will occur about 6.8 million miles from Earth, astronomers will be watching with their telescopes to see the asteroid's orbit change. </p><p>If the method works, it could one day save Earth from a city-killing asteroid. But there's a catch. In order to use a DART-like mission to divert such a threat, experts <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">previously told Insider</a>, NASA probably needs about five to 10 years' advanced notice of an Earth-bound asteroid.</p><div type="image" title="technicians in white cleansuits inspect dart spacecraft four foot yellow box in white warehouse cleanroom" height="1505" width="2007" msid="87821860" hostid="261"></div><p>That's because it takes years to design and build a spacecraft, then months or years to travel to the asteroid. What's more, the probe would likely need to hit an asteroid a year or two before its orbit intersects with Earth. The slight nudge of a spacecraft impact would only take the rock slightly off course at first. But over time, that change would carry it away from Earth.</p><p>In order to identify hazardous asteroids with enough lead time, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-advances-asteroid-tracking-space-telescope-after-years-of-limbo-2021-6">NASA is building a space telescope</a> called Near-Earth Object Surveyor to monitor asteroids 140 meters or larger. Right now astronomers have identified an estimated 40% of such asteroids that orbit the sun near Earth, but NASA hopes the telescope will bring that catalogue up to 90%.</p><p>Astronomers on Earth will quickly be able to see whether DART worked. Then the European Space Agency plans to launch a follow-up mission, called Hera, to examine Didymos and Dimorphos in 2026. Hera will study the aftermath of the impact. It's set to map Dimorphos, precisely measure its mass, and examine the crater that DART leaves there.</p><p><em>This post has been updated. It was originally published November 20, 2021.</em></p>

Watch NASA launch a probe to smash into an asteroid. It's practice for pushing city-killing space rocks away from Earth.

A potentially hazardous giant <keyword id="6549794" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="asteroid">asteroid</keyword> with an ‘extremely eccentric’ <keyword id="6375157" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Orbit">orbit</keyword> is set to fly past the <keyword id="6359982" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="earth">Earth</keyword> on October 31 at over 125,529 kilometers per hour, according to <keyword id="6360409" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="NASA">NASA</keyword>. <br /><br />

	The asteroid, known as 2015 TB145, will pass our planet by only 499,000 kilometers — the closest pass since July 2006.
<br /><br />

	The asteroid was spotted on October 10, even though NASA is constantly scanning and tracking asteroids that could potentially fly past the Earth, the Mirror reported.
<br /><br />

	“The asteroid is on an extremely eccentric and a high inclination orbit,” NASA officials said.
<br /><br />

	NASA scientists estimate that the asteroid could be between 280 to 620 metres in diameter. The asteroid will not be visible through the naked eye but will be visible through a telescope.
<br /><br />

	“This is the closest approach by a known object this large until 1999 AN10 approaches within 1 lunar distance in August 2027,” NASA said.
<br /><br />

	The 2015 TB145 asteroid is classified as a potentially hazardous object as it falls well within the 7,402,982 kilometres threshold of proximity to Earth, the report said.
<br /><br />

	However, despite the erratic orbit and close pass, NASA is confident the asteroid would not hit the Earth.<br />
	<br />
	Image credit: Economic Times

Giant asteroid to whizz past Earth on Oct 31

<ul class="summary-list"><li>On Saturday, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-advances-asteroid-tracking-space-telescope-after-years-of-limbo-2021-6">NASA</a> plans to launch its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/osiris-rex-spacecraft-asteroids-trojan-2016-12">Lucy</a> probe to the Trojan <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-hit-ancient-middle-eastern-city-inspired-sodom-bible-story-2021-9">asteroids</a> that orbit the sun with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/5-years-of-stunning-jupiter-photos-nasa-juno-mission-2021-9">Jupiter</a>. </li><li>The Trojans are like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fossil-footprints-humans-occupied-north-america-ice-age-2021-9">fossils</a>, unchanged since the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-animation-reveals-planets-wildly-different-speeds-2021-8">solar system</a> was born 4.6 billion years ago.</li><li><keyword id="12264053" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="lucy" source="Orion">Lucy</keyword> aims to visit eight <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">asteroids</a> - a record number of encounters.</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hubble-space-telescope-wind-changes-jupiter-great-red-spot-2021-9">NASA</a> is about to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-launching-film-crew-to-space-station-2021-9">launch</a> an ambitious mission to explore swarms of <keyword id="12253294" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroids" source="Orion">asteroids</keyword> as old as our <keyword id="11910185" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="solar-system" source="Orion">solar system</keyword>.</p><p>Those asteroids, called Trojans, orbit the sun alongside <keyword id="11949137" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="jupiter" source="Orion">Jupiter</keyword>. One group of them leads the gas giant along its orbital path, and another group trails behind. These space rocks formed during the birth of our solar system nearly 4.6 billion years ago and have remained largely unchanged ever since.</p><div type="image" title="atlas v rocket lifting off" height="1920" width="1279" msid="87050188" hostid="261"></div><p>Scientists want to find out what those time capsules hold, so <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword> is sending a 52-foot-wide spacecraft, called Lucy, to investigate. The probe is set to launch aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Saturday morning.</p><p>Lucy is scheduled to visit eight asteroids over the next 12 years. One of those space rocks is in the solar system's main asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter, which Lucy will pass on its way to the other seven asteroids, which are part of the Trojans.</p><p>"These objects we view as being the fossils of planet formation," Hal Levison, the mission's principal investigator, said in a briefing last month.</p><div type="image" title="animated diagram of trojan asteroid leading following jupiter on orbit around the sun" height="500" width="500" msid="86839250" hostid="261"></div><p>That's where Lucy gets its name - it's a reference to the famous 3.2-million-year-old fossilized human ancestor. At the time of her discovery, in 1974, Lucy was the oldest, most complete hominin skeleton ever found. She was evidence that human ancestors walked upright, which helped paleoanthropologists piece together humans' evolutionary history. Scientists hope that <keyword id="12264054" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="trojan-asteroids" source="Orion">Trojan asteroids</keyword> can do the same for the outer solar system.</p><p>"Some of the most important planetary <keyword id="11896083" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="science" source="Orion">science</keyword> questions we're trying to answer are focused on the origin and the evolution of the solar system. Asteroids and other small bodies are really important keys to understanding that history," Lori Glaze, NASA's director of planetary science, said in the briefing.</p><div type="image" title="lucy spacecraft folded up with rocket shell closing around it" height="2136" width="1700" msid="86839251" hostid="261"></div><p>Lucy's planned journey would lead it to visit more asteroids than any prior spacecraft. It will also venture further from the sun than any solar-powered probe has ever gone.</p><h2>Watch live as Lucy launches into space</h2><p>Liftoff is scheduled for 5:34 a.m. ET on Saturday. NASA plans to start its live launch broadcast at 5 a.m. in the video embedded below.</p><p>If weather delays the launch, NASA has another 22 days in its window, with an hour-long launch opportunity each morning.</p><h2>Close encounters of the asteroid kind</h2><div type="image" title="trojan asteroids illustration rocks in space leading and following jupiter" height="1440" width="1920" msid="86839252" hostid="261"></div><p>Lucy's mission is seven years in the making. The original plan called for visits to just two asteroids, but NASA grew more ambitious as engineers and scientists designed the spacecraft and plotted its journey.</p><p>Now, the probe has a record-breaking lineup. Some of its eight stops are two-for-ones: One asteroid has its own satellite - a smaller rock trapped in its orbit - and two of Lucy's targets are a pair of binary asteroids that circle each other.</p><p>But Lucy's encounter with each space rock will be brief. The spacecraft can't slow down or land - that would require too much propellant - so it will zip within 600 miles of their surfaces, moving 3 to five 5 miles per second.</p><p>During the few hours in which it approaches and passes the asteroids, Lucy's scientific instruments will collect data on their composition, density, and size. It could even discover rocks or rings circling the asteroids - features too small to see from Earth.</p><p>By the end of Lucy's journey, NASA expects to have spent $981.1 million on the mission, according to Glaze.</p><h2>Lucy has to revisit Earth 3 times to hit its targets</h2><div type="image" title="lucy spacecraft trajectory diagram" height="2813" width="3750" msid="86839253" hostid="261"></div><p>Scientists have identified over 7,000 Trojan asteroids, split into three major types. One group resembles the space rocks in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, while the other two resemble icy objects in the Kuiper Belt on the outskirts of the solar system.</p><p>This suggests that the various types of Trojans formed through different processes, and in different parts of the solar system. Scientists aren't sure how they ended up together along Jupiter's orbit. So Lucy will visit asteroids of each type in an attempt to find out.</p><p>"Covering this diversity is key. And finding a trajectory that actually will allow us to visit all these types of objects has been a real chore," Levison said.</p><p>To reach all of its destinations, in fact, Lucy has to circle back to Earth three times to get a momentum boost from our planet's gravity. That will make it the first spacecraft to travel to Jupiter's orbit and back.</p><h2>NASA is going all in on asteroids</h2><div type="image" title="DART nasa mission approaching asteroid image edited for thumbnail" height="1406" width="2500" msid="86839254" hostid="261"></div><p>NASA is sending probes to asteroids scattered all over the solar system.</p><p>"Lucy is part of a collection of ambitious missions to study the diversity of these asteroid populations that will help us fill in more pieces of that cosmic puzzle," Glaze said.</p><p>NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has been studying asteroids and other objects in the Kuiper Belt, beyond Neptune, since it flew past Pluto in 2015.</p><p>The agency's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-bennu-is-hollow-spinning-to-death-2020-11">OSIRIS-REx</a> spacecraft, meanwhile, landed on an asteroid last year, punched into its surface, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-spacecraft-stored-pounds-of-rock-2020-10">scooped a sample of rock</a>. That probe is on its way back to Earth with the sample in tow. Japan recently completed a similar mission and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-japan-asteroid-sample-treasure-box-returns-2020-12">brought its own asteroid samples to Earth</a>, so NASA and Japan's space agency plan to trade bits of their samples.</p><div type="image" title="osiris rex landing crush rock" height="1024" width="1024" msid="86839255" hostid="261"></div><p>Other missions aim to prepare for the possibility that an asteroid could <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dinosaurs-going-extinct-before-asteroid-hit-earth-study-2021-6">strike our planet</a>. Next month, NASA plans to launch a spacecraft to slam into a nearby asteroid. That mission, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), is testing a method that could deflect space rocks off of a collision course with Earth. NASA is also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-advances-asteroid-tracking-space-telescope-after-years-of-limbo-2021-6">working on a new space telescope, called NEO (near-Earth object) Surveyor,</a> which would help scientists catalogue dangerous asteroids in our neighborhood.</p><p>Next year, NASA plans to launch yet another probe, called Psyche, to a metallic asteroid that could be the leftover core of an ancient planet.</p><p>"All of these are incredibly interesting destinations. And in each case, we're exploring places no spacecraft has ever been, so we won't know for sure what we'll discover till we get there," Glaze said. "But we know that whatever Lucy finds will give us vital clues about the formation of our solar system."</p><p><em>This post has been updated. It was originally published on October 7, 2021.</em></p>

Watch NASA launch a spacecraft to explore ancient asteroids that lead and trail Jupiter around the sun

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-simulated-asteroid-couldnt-stop-impact-europe-2021-5">NASA simulated</a> a scenario in which an asteroid was approaching Earth and would hit in six months.</li><li>The experts determined that wasn't enough time to stop it. We'd need at least five years to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-neowise-surprise-appearance-earth-unprepared-for-asteroids-2020-7">deflect an asteroid</a>.</li><li>To have that much warning time, <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> needs a new <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">space</keyword> telescope that can spot <keyword id="81841" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Asteroids">asteroids</keyword>.</li></ul><p>Last month, experts from NASA and other space agencies around the world faced a troubling hypothetical scenario: A mysterious asteroid had just been discovered 35 million miles away, and it was heading for Earth. The space rock was expected to hit in six months.</p><p>The situation was fictional, part of a week-long exercise that simulated an incoming asteroid in order to help US and international experts practice how to respond to such a situation.</p><p>The <keyword id="67741" type="TECHNOLOGY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Simulation">simulation</keyword> taught the group a difficult lesson: If an Earth-bound asteroid were spotted with that little warning, there's nothing anyone could do to keep it from hitting the planet. The experts determined that no existing technologies could stop the asteroid from striking, given the scenario's six-month window. There isn't a spacecraft capable of destroying an asteroid or pushing it off its path that could get off the ground and fly to the rock in that amount of time. </p><p>Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, helped host the recent simulation, as well as five previous ones like it. He said this exercise set the participants up for failure.</p><p>"It's what we call a short-warning scenario," he told Insider. "It was, by design, very challenging."</p><p>In reality, if an asteroid like that fictional one were heading for Earth, scientists would need years - not months - of warning. Five years is the minimum, according to Chodas. Others, like MIT astronomer Richard Binzel, say we'd need at least a decade.</p><p>"Time is the most valuable commodity you could possibly wish for, if faced with a real asteroid threat," Binzel told Insider.</p><p>But scientists haven't identified most of the hazardous space rocks that pass near our planet, which makes the chances slim that we'd get a five- or 10-year warning period. In 2005, Congress attempted to address this issue by mandating that NASA find and track 90% of all <keyword id="1821718" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="near-Earth-objects">near-Earth objects</keyword> 140 meters (460 feet) or larger. At that size, asteroids could obliterate a city the size of New York. But to date, NASA has only spotted about 40% of those objects.</p><p>"What that means is, for now, we are relying on luck to keep us safe from major <keyword id="2929843" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroid-impacts">asteroid impacts</keyword>," Binzel said. "But luck is not a plan."</p><h2>To defend a planet, 'know thy enemy'</h2><div type="image" title="asteroid russia Chelyabinsk" height="3744" width="5616" msid="82574875" hostid="261"></div><p>In NASA's recent simulation, the participating scientists didn't know how big the hypothetical asteroid was <a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/pd/cs/pdc21/pdc21_factsheet4.pdf">until a week before</a> it was set to hit Earth.</p><p>"We didn't know if the object was 35 meters across or 500 meters across. And that makes a very big difference," Sarah Sonnett, a researcher at the Planetary <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> Institute who participated in the exercise, told Insider.</p><p>A 35-meter asteroid could explode in the atmosphere and send shockwaves through a neighborhood. A 500-meter asteroid could decimate a city, affecting an area the size of France.</p><p>So a crucial part of stopping an asteroid from hitting Earth is understanding as much as possible about the rock. That includes its size, the path it takes around the sun, and what it's made of. With that information, scientists can evaluate strategies to dismantle the rock or disrupt its path.</p><p>"It takes time to know thy enemy," Binzel said.</p><p>Ideally, Sonnett said, scientists would be able to study a hazardous asteroid as it passed Earth a few times in its orbit around the sun, before that path brought it close enough to collide with our planet. Observing a passing asteroid several times could take years or even decades.</p><h2>Step 2: Destroy or deflect the asteroid</h2><div type="image" title="asteroid broken up" height="2250" width="3000" msid="82574878" hostid="261"></div><p>NASA has three main tools in its planetary-defense arsenal. The first is to detonate an explosive device near an oncoming asteroid to break it up into smaller, less dangerous chunks. The second is to fire lasers that could heat up and vaporize the space rock enough to change its orbital path. The third is to send a spacecraft to slam into the asteroid, knocking it off its trajectory.</p><p>NASA is about to test that last strategy. Its Double Asteroid Redirection Test will send a probe to the asteroid Dimorphos in the fall of 2022 and purposefully hit it.</p><p>But any of the three options, Chodas said, would take years.</p><p>"Typically, that's a drawn-out, multi-year process to go from proposal to actually having a spacecraft on a launch vehicle - let alone the fact that you still have to cruise to get to your destination and deflect the asteroid," he said. </p><p>After that, it would take one or two years for the asteroid's path around the sun to actually change enough to carry it away from Earth. That's why the timeline matters: The earlier scientists can identify a hazardous space rock, the less ambitious a deflection mission would have to be.</p><div type="image" title="DART nasa asteroid mission spacecraft" height="1406" width="2500" msid="82574881" hostid="261"></div><p>But of course, all of these methods are useless if nobody knows the asteroid is coming.</p><p>"I think the best investment is in knowledge. The best investment is knowing what's out there," Binzel said.</p><p>That means completing a catalogue of near-Earth objects that could damage the Earth.</p><h2>NASA is developing a space telescope to track asteroids</h2><div type="image" title="NEO CAM NEO Surveyor NASA" height="600" width="750" msid="82574883" hostid="261"></div><p>NASA is planning a mission to track down asteroids that are too dim for telescopes on Earth to see. The NEO Surveyor Mission, as it's known (NEO stands for near-Earth object), would launch an infrared telescope into Earth's orbit <a href="https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2021/pdf/2705.pdf">in 2026</a>. Sonnet is on that mission team.</p><p>"If we do the job now of finding those objects and tracking them, knowing their orbits, knowing where they're going to head, and then characterizing their sizes, then we should be in really good shape," she said.</p><p>If the telescope launches and works as planned, it should fulfill NASA's Congressional mandate to find 90% of the most dangerous near-Earth objects.</p><p>But for five years, the NEO Surveyor has been caught in "NASA mission limbo hell," as Binzel put it. Due to insufficient funding, it hasn't moved past the early development phase.</p><p>Sonnett has her fingers crossed that the NEO Surveyor Mission will do well in an upcoming review. At the end of this month, NASA will assess whether the mission is ready to move into the next phase. If so, the team could start building prototypes and developing hardware and software. If not, the telescope's launch could be delayed even further.</p><p>"Because we now have the capability to detect and know what is out there, I think scientifically we have a moral responsibility to obtain that information," Binzel said. "It would be unconscionable that we were caught by surprise, by an asteroid impact that we could have seen coming."</p>

We'd need 5 to 10 years' notice to stop a killer asteroid heading for Earth

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Astronomers have uncovered fragments of a 6-foot-wide <keyword id="6549794" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroid">asteroid</keyword> that struck <keyword id="6489982" type="LOCATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="botswana">Botswana</keyword> in 2018.</li><li>According to a new study of those fragments, the <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">space</keyword> rock originated from the <keyword id="1898611" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Asteroid-belt">asteroid belt</keyword>.</li><li>Scientists estimate the asteroid's journey across the solar system took nearly 23 million years. </li></ul><p>In the early hours of June 2, 2018, astronomers at the University of Arizona saw a faint dot of light moving across the sky.</p><p>It was an asteroid, which loomed larger and larger as it approached Earth. A few hours later, the 6-foot-wide space rock - named 2018 LA - caught fire as it roared through the atmosphere at a blistering <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/tiny-asteroid-discovered-saturday-disintegrates-hours-later-over-southern-africa">38,000 miles per hour</a>. It broke into tiny fragments that rained down across Botswana.</p><p>A group of researchers raced to the end of that fireball's path to hunt for the rare fragments, since they held clues about the asteroid's origins. </p><p>"This is only the second time we have spotted an asteroid in space before it hit Earth over land," Peter Jenniskens, an astronomer at the SETI Institute, said <a href="https://www.seti.org/press-release/asteroid-hit-botswana-2018-likely-came-vesta">in a press release</a>.</p><p>Jenniskens' team eventually found 23 pieces of the asteroid in Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Reserve. According to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/maps.13653">a new study</a> from the group, an analysis of those fragments showed that 2018 LA was actually a piece of a larger asteroid called <keyword id="1370560" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Vesta">Vesta</keyword>, which is the brightest and second-largest asteroid in our solar system. </p><p>By dating the elements inside the asteroid fragments, Jenniskens' team determined that the space rock had been traveling for nearly 23 million years after it broke off Vesta.</p><h2>'A national treasure of Botswana'</h2><div type="image" title="vesta fragment botswana 2018 LA" height="1908" width="1264" msid="82343666" hostid="261"></div><p>Jenniskens' team almost struck out in their first hunt for asteroid fragments. But five days in, on their last day searching in the game reserve, the group found their first meteorite just 100 feet from their camp. (Asteroids that reach Earth's surface are called <a href="https://meteorites.asu.edu/meteorites/meteorite-origins" target="_blank" rel="noopener">meteorites</a>.)</p><p>It was just over an inch long and weighed 18 grams, he said. </p><p>"The meteorite is named 'Motopi Pan' after a local watering hole," Mohutsiwa Gabadirwe, a researcher from the Botswana Geoscience Institute who co-authored the study, said in the release. "This meteorite is a national treasure of Botswana."</p><p>During a second expedition in October 2018, the team found the other 22 meteorite pieces.</p><div type="image" title="asteroid belt vega" height="585" width="1041" msid="82343667" hostid="261"></div><p>The researchers analyzed the metal content and make-up of those fragments, and determined that they belong to a class of meteorites called Howardite-Eucrite-Diogenite (HED) meteorites. This whole group likely originated from Vesta, in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.</p><p>According to the study authors, one-third of all HED meteorites found on Earth broke off of Vesta nearly 23 million years ago, when it was struck by another space object. They think that's true of this asteroid, too.</p><div type="image" title="asteroid vesta" height="1001" width="1334" msid="82343669" hostid="261"></div><p>The fragments' composition also offers hints about Vesta's violent past. An examination of the minerals inside Motopi Pan suggest the rock melted and reformed twice: 4.6 billion years ago then 4.2 billion years ago. </p><p>"Billions of years ago, two giant impacts on Vesta created a family of larger, more dangerous asteroids," Jenniskens said. "The newly recovered meteorites gave us a clue on when those impacts might have happened."</p>

A small asteroid that hit Botswana took 23 million years to get here from the asteroid belt, astronomers found

<ul class="summary-list"><li>A <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> spacecraft carrying samples from an <keyword id="6549794" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroid">asteroid</keyword> began a journey back to Earth on Monday.</li><li>OSIRIS-REx is carrying a 2 oz. sample from the surface of an asteroid called Bennu.</li><li>It is the largest sample collected since the Apollo moon missions. It's due to arrive in 2023.</li></ul><p>A spacecraft carrying around 2 ounces of dust from the surface of an asteroid is on its way back to Earth.</p><p>The spacecraft, called OSIRIS-REx, launched its thrusters for 7 minutes on Monday to leave the asteroid Bennu, <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-osiris-rex-spacecraft-heads-for-earth-with-asteroid-sample">NASA said in a statement on Monday</a>.</p><p>The probe had collected 60 grams, or about 2 ounces, of carbon-rich <keyword id="41531" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="space">space</keyword> dust, <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-osiris-rex-spacecraft-heads-for-earth-with-asteroid-sample">NASA said</a>.</p><p>This is the largest sample collected since the manned Apollo missions to the Moon, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-57065381">the BBC reported</a>.</p><p>A video from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, shows what the next steps are for the spacecraft:</p><p>If all goes to plan, the spacecraft should circle the sun twice before it comes close to Earth. </p><div type="image" title="OSIRIS-REx return to Earth from Bennu" height="1279" width="1705" msid="82548797" hostid="261"></div><p>Once it is within 6,000 miles of Earth, a capsule carrying the samples should be released. </p><p>NASA expects the sample will land in the desert in Utah on September 24, 2023.</p><p>OSIRIS-REx was launched almost five years ago. It is the first mission NASA has sent to collect samples from an asteroid, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/10/world/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-bennu-departure-scn/index.html">CNN reported</a>. </p><p>Its main purpose was to confirm whether measurements made from Earth were accurate, <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-osiris-rex-spacecraft-heads-for-earth-with-asteroid-sample">NASA said in a statement</a>.</p><p>Information such as this could be a stepping stone for future space missions going into deeper space.</p><p>OSIRIS-REx first got close to Bennu in 2018. Before collecting the samples, it circled the asteroid, collecting information and planning where to land. </p><p>The 20 ft. long, 8 ft. wide probe is also carrying tools, such as spectrometers and a camera, which took measurements of the asteroid's surface.</p><div type="image" title="twelve image_polycam_mosaic_12 2 18" height="1500" width="2000" msid="82548799" hostid="261"></div><p>These measurements have already confirmed predictions from NASA that the asteroid's carbon-rich soil contained oxygen and hydrogen molecules.</p><p>This suggests that Bennu might have <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-newly-arrived-osiris-rex-spacecraft-already-discovers-water-on-asteroid">interacted with water at some point</a>.</p><p>The scientists were surprised to see, when the probe got closer, that the asteroid's surface was not smooth, as they had predicted, but instead <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-bennu-is-hollow-spinning-to-death-2020-11">was littered with boulders</a>.</p><p>This made the descent to the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/post/preview?post_id=609a6096c29eae622b76e762&amp;mode=desktopktop">asteroid more tricky</a>.</p><p>It finally <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-video-osiris-rex-probe-landing-on-asteroid-kicking-dust-2020-10https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-osiris-rex-asteroid-spacecraft-stored-pounds-of-rock-2020-10">touched down on Bennu on Oct 20, 2020</a>. The collection arm shot out nitrogen, which disturbed the asteroid's surface to bring the sample into the collection chamber, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-video-osiris-rex-probe-landing-on-asteroid-kicking-dust-2020-10">Insider's Morgan McFall-Johnsen reported</a>. </p><div type="image" title="OSIRIX-REx" height="1000" width="2000" msid="82548800" hostid="261"></div><p>Onboard cameras showed how it sucked up dust from the asteroid's surface to store it in a container. </p>

A NASA probe successfully collected 2 oz. of space rock from a distant asteroid and is blasting its way back to Earth

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-hubble-portraits-jupiter-saturn-uranus-neptune-changing-weather-colors-2021-11">NASA</a> launched a spacecraft early Wednesday on a journey to slam into a stadium-size <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-hit-ancient-middle-eastern-city-inspired-sodom-bible-story-2021-9">asteroid</a>.</li><li>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/watch-nasa-launch-asteroid-crashing-spacecraft-dart-2021-11">Double Asteroid Redirection Test</a> seeks to nudge the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">space rock</a> into a new orbit.</li></ul><p>A <keyword id="11908743" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="spacex" source="Orion">SpaceX</keyword> <keyword id="12067647" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="falcon-9" source="Orion">Falcon 9</keyword> rocket roared to life and soared through the dark California skies early Wednesday, carrying a small probe that could teach <keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword> how to save Earth from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-advances-asteroid-tracking-space-telescope-after-years-of-limbo-2021-6">dangerous asteroids</a>.</p><p>NASA isn't aware of any <keyword id="12253294" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroids" source="Orion">asteroids</keyword> headed for Earth in the next 100 years. But the agency <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-simulated-asteroid-couldnt-stop-impact-europe-2021-5">expects</a> enormous space rocks to approach our planet eventually, and it has a plan to nudge them away. A new spacecraft — a mission called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test — is testing that plan. Its sole job: to crash head-on into the center of a distant asteroid.</p><p>The probe, a box that is smaller than a golf cart, lifted off aboard the Falcon 9 at 1:21 a.m. ET on Wednesday. Once the rocket releases it into space, the <keyword id="12574842" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="dart" source="Orion">DART</keyword> spacecraft is expected to spend about two hours unfurling its solar panels.</p><div type="image" title="falcon 9 rocket lifting off at night with dart mission" height="1619" width="2880" msid="87884919" hostid="261"></div><p>If that goes smoothly, the probe will be hurtling toward a pair of asteroids. One, a moonlet called Dimorphos, orbits the other, Didymos. DART is aiming for the moonlet, which is about as big as a football stadium. It's set to reach its target, 6.8 million miles from Earth, in September 2022.</p><p>"We're going to hit it hard, but we're hitting it with a very small vehicle," Ed Reynolds, the DART project manager at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, said at a press conference Monday. "When we're looking at what does it take to deflect an asteroid away from Earth — given enough time, you can do big things with small vehicles."</p><div type="image" title="rocket fairing two large halves close around small human-sized dart spacecraft" height="2249" width="1500" msid="87884072" hostid="261"></div><p>That nudge should be just enough to push Dimorphos closer to Didymos, causing it to orbit the larger asteroid about 10 minutes faster than before — every 11 hours and 45 minutes instead of every 11 hours and 55 minutes.</p><p>If it succeeds, DART will prove the technology can change the paths of dangerous asteroids. It will also provide NASA with valuable data about how the collision affects the asteroid and how big a probe must be to move its target.</p><p>"I could imagine, for example, that we have a series of such impactors — a small number — that are actually in orbit and ready to go in case a threat occurred," Thomas Zurbuchen, an associate administrator at NASA, said at a prelaunch press conference Monday.</p><h2>DART's final hour will make or break the mission</h2><p>NASA isn't tracking every space rock in our neighborhood of the solar system. Astronomers have identified an estimated 40% of nearby asteroids that are 140 meters wide or larger — those big enough to level a city. Dimorphos, at 160 meters, is a perfect model of such a city killer.</p><div type="image" title="asteroid dimorphos edited next to rome Colosseum showing they are the same size" height="2418" width="2000" msid="87884074" hostid="261"></div><p>But other than its size and how quickly it orbits Didymos, scientists know little about their target. They can't see it directly with telescopes on Earth, instead gleaning information from changes in Didymos' light as the moonlet passes between the larger asteroid and Earth.</p><p>NASA won't even know what shape Dimorphos is until DART's camera catches sight of it about an hour before collision.</p><p>As Dimorphos comes into view, a spacecraft system called SMART Nav is programmed to rapidly calculate the looming asteroid's center. Then the probe's navigation system will fire its thrusters to steer it to the target.</p><p>During its final approach, DART is programmed to beam a new photo back to Earth every second. A small Italian spacecraft, LICIACube, is set to release itself from DART 10 days before collision, fly alongside the NASA probe, and record the crash.</p><p>The spacecraft should hit Dimorphos' center at 15,000 mph, or 4 miles a second, transferring its kinetic energy to the asteroid and pushing it closer to Didymos. NASA estimates that the impact will cause an explosion of 22,000 to 220,000 pounds of rock material, which could give the asteroid an even bigger push than DART itself.</p><p>The European Space Agency plans to launch a follow-up mission, called Hera, to examine Didymos and Dimorphos in 2026. In addition to studying the aftermath of the impact, Hera would map Dimorphos, precisely measure its mass, and examine the crater DART leaves there.</p><h2>Nudging an asteroid works only if NASA has enough time to reach it</h2><div type="image" title="neocam asteroid hunter spacecraft discovery nasa jpl caltech" height="1476" width="1968" msid="87884075" hostid="261"></div><p>To use a DART-like mission to divert an Earth-bound boulder, NASA needs about five to 10 years' notice of an asteroid's advance, experts <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asteroid-simulation-reveals-need-years-of-warning-2021-5">previously told Insider</a>.</p><p>That's because it takes years to design and build a spacecraft and then months or years to travel to the asteroid. What's more, the probe probably needs to hit an asteroid a year or two before its orbit would intersect with Earth. The slight nudge of a spacecraft impact takes the rock only slightly off course at first. But over time, that change carries it farther away from Earth.</p><p>To identify hazardous asteroids with enough lead time, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-advances-asteroid-tracking-space-telescope-after-years-of-limbo-2021-6">NASA is building a space telescope</a> called Near-Earth Object Surveyor to monitor large asteroids orbiting the sun near Earth. NASA hopes the telescope will identify 90% of asteroids 140 meters or larger.</p><p>"If we don't find these objects that could be an impact threat to the Earth — a hazard to the Earth — we can't do anything about them," Lindley Johnson, NASA's planetary-defense officer, said in the Monday briefing.</p><p><em>Aylin Woodward contributed reporting.</em></p>

NASA launches DART probe on a head-on collision course with an asteroid

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword>'s new spacecraft mission aims to smash into the asteroid Dimorphos to reduce its speed.</li><li>The asteroid will be slowed by a centimeter per second, but that's enough to change its orbit and eventual course.</li><li>Scientists are testing to see if this method can help Earth defend itself from future incoming <keyword id="12253294" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="asteroids" source="Orion">asteroids</keyword>.</li></ul><p>NASA is preparing to launch a spacecraft that it wants to smash into an asteroid for planetary defense.</p><p>The first-of-its-kind DART mission, or Double Asteroid Redirection Test, is set to launch at 10:20 p.m. Pacific Time on November 23, aboard a <keyword id="11895441" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="space" source="Orion">Space</keyword>X Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, according to <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-invites-media-to-launch-of-double-asteroid-redirection-test">NASA.</a> </p><p>Scientists are testing if they can use the collision to alter the orbit of Dimorphos, a 525-foot long moonlet asteroid that's millions of miles away from Earth and slightly smaller than the Washington Monument. Dimorphos orbits a larger asteroid called Didymos, which is almost half a mile long.</p><p>Both asteroids are expected to come within roughly 6.8 million miles of Earth in September 2022, and the spacecraft is expected to reach Dimorphos - and crash into it - around the same time.</p><p>The impact of the speeding spacecraft - moving at approximately 14,783 miles per hour - is expected to reduce Dimorphos' speed by about 1%. That may not seem substantial, but it's enough to alter the smaller asteroid's orbit, which scientists hope to observe from telescopes here on Earth.</p><h2>The purpose of DART is planetary defense</h2><p>DART's ultimate goal is to gain information on how space organizations can defend Earth from deadly asteroids hurtling towards us in the future.</p><p>"The Earth is hit by asteroids and pieces of asteroids all the time. Every year or so, we get hit by things the size of a table," said Andy Rivkin, DART's co-lead investigator from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNSYuY6N1Rs">2018 video</a> featured on the project's website.</p><p>He said that objects like Dimorphos and Didymos hit Earth every few thousand years and are large enough to cause significant damage "on a regional scale."</p><p>A <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-neowise-surprise-appearance-earth-unprepared-for-asteroids-2020-7">3-mile-wide chunk of space ice</a> passed within 64 million miles of the planet in July. And in 2019, a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/asteroid-flies-close-to-earth-surprising-scientists-2019-7">427-foot-wide "city-killer" asteroid that scientists had no idea about</a> until several days before it flew by came within 45 million miles of Earth. </p><p>In comparison, the asteroid that ended the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was 6 miles wide.</p><p>The DART mission, developed and led for NASA by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, uses a "low-cost" spacecraft that will be outfitted with two solar arrays making it a total 27.9 feet long, said the project website.</p><p>The craft is equipped with a camera to help guide it to Dimorphos and an Italian-made satellite cube that will detach from the spacecraft before the impact and take pictures of the collision.</p><p>A few years after the DART impact, the European Space Agency said its <a href="https://www.esa.int/Safety_Security/Hera">Hera mission</a> will investigate the project's effect on Dimorphos and its companion, Didymos.</p><p>NASA has launched missions to hit asteroids before, aimed at gathering information about space objects. In 2005, it conducted the <a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/deep-impact-epoxi/in-depth/">Deep Impact mission</a> to hit the comet Tempel 1, which it observed for eight years before it lost communication with the spacecraft.</p><p>The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab team did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.</p>

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