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in case there was an asteroid coming towards Earth and you’re there you can actually stop it

NASA is crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid I would take a couple hundred million dollars spacecraft crashing into a masked raid my name is Michelle Chen I’m way to Adam my name is Kelly. I’m a planetary Defender and I study how the orbit of asteroids change after we hit the missile a scrap of planetary defense technique called Connecticut packer

can ask her why they were closed which orbits of the asteroid in most only be changing the. Of the orbit and I’m also cited a tiny amount but in space just a little bit it’s just enough to make an asteroid actually in the event that an asteroid is Discovery Well ahead of time before it might impact Earth space craft it’s really cool to see it in real life from ideas into real pieces that are going to go into space 2 solar array opens out going to swing out in this directions to asteroid only two football fields is 5/6 km to second 30 days out we see it one pixel on Ark

DeMarcos is one point of light

and that’s where everything gets really exciting

in fact

super excited and nervous as well I feel really honored and humbled to be working in an area of science that has such a broader impact figuratively so dark the dinosaurs are made completely extinct by an asteroid impact so many years ago here we are we can actually do something about it I think this is just wonderful

what is this thing out of a disaster movie that’s as late as Mission plans to send a small spacecraft on a collision course with an asteroid asteroids have been hitting the Earth for billions of years that’s not new what’s exciting and new here is that we’re actually taking the first steps to be able to prevent that potentially in the future and that’s where dark comes in Asteroid redirection test or dark for short is a first-of-its-kind chest of planetary defense the mission is scheduled to launch in November putting the spacecraft on a collision course with an asteroid in September or October of next year it’ll come speeding in 15,000 miles per hour into hit this a smaller asteroid this is just a test of the asteroid in question is not on a collision course with Earth just close enough that when the spacecraft actually hits it a small change in its orbit could actually be observed

it really is just a small nudge the key behind this is deflection not disruption we’re absolutely not trying to disrupt this asteroid we’re just giving it a small nudge to change its Future Path much like this could be enough to redirect a similar sized asteroid from a collision course with Earth but this mission is really just a first step is one part of NASA’s larger planetary defense strategy and it’s not just all about the flexing asteroids a really important part is finding all of the asteroids and tracking where they are

Tom Costello joins us now Tom this is just so fascinating but the asteroid is relatively small as I think it’s only about 160 mi in diameter so their spacecraft it’s about the size of that big Las Vegas ferris wheel that we’re all familiar with right but the trouble is Dart is traveling at 13000 mph to speed and it gets easily missed it has an on-board navigation system but the trouble is the lag between that space vehicle at Earth is so great they can’t have somebody back on Earth using a joystick be on board that has got to do this using photographs to try 20 n and then hit it straight up straight on it’s going to be a challenge because this is really like hitting a moving Target in the middle of nowhere

really fascinating stuff right now and thanks for that

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