Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Phoenix New Media, Beijing, October 12 (Xinhua)-- NASA announced on Tuesday that its test mission of using spacecraft to push a distant asteroid out of orbit has been a success. The test shows a potentially new way to protect Earth from dangerous space rocks that astronomers may discover in the future.

Spectacular images of DART after hitting an asteroid

The double asteroid redirection test (DART) spacecraft changed the orbit of its moving target, NASA said on Tuesday. NASA Director Bill Nelson (Bill Nelson) told reporters at a news conference: "NASA has proved that we are serious defenders of the earth."

On September 26, DART, the size of a refrigerator, crashed into an asteroid called Dimorphos at 14,000 miles per hour. Dimovers is about the size of a football field and revolves around a larger asteroid, Didymos. The momentum generated by the impact, coupled with the recoil of ejected particles from the collision, has greatly changed the path of Demodus in space.

Before the impact, Demodus circled Didimos about every 11 hours and 55 minutes, NASA said. After the impact, according to astronomical observations, the current orbital time is 11 hours and 23 minutes, 32 minutes less than before. Now, the orbit of "Demodus" is a little closer to "Didimos".

"for the first time in history, mankind has changed the orbit of planetary celestial bodies." NASA Science Mission Council Director Lori Graz (Lori Glaze) said at a news conference.

According to the NASA measure, the minimum requirement for a successful DART test is a trajectory change time of 73 seconds, and this task has greatly exceeded this requirement. The accuracy of the change has an error of plus or minus two minutes. NASA uses four optical telescopes and planetary radar to determine the new orbit of the asteroid.

Demofus has never posed a threat to Earth, it is just a target asteroid used by NASA to demonstrate this push-off technology. If an asteroid the size of Demodus hits densely populated areas of the earth, it could cause regional damage.

"I think the DART mission has proved that we have the ability to deflect asteroids, even potentially dangerous asteroids of this size." Graz said.

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