DART Mission Live Feed

[dmwalker 604]

15 minutes to go. Is that Dimorphos at the 2:00 position?

[n4gix 4,947]

Well, there wasn't much to see. Not even a simulated BOOM, just a sudden LOS (loss of signal).  😴

[martin-w 3,235]

They wouldn't give you a simulated boom. The conspiracy theorists would say it was proof it was fake. 😁

There was plenty to see of the target. Incredible that we can see so much detail and hit it exactly where desired from so far away.

Humankind's first attempt at planetary defence, so actually quite profound.

[charliearon 3,024]

Has anyone said what affect the crash had?  Did it slow or divert the asteroid at all?

Just read a news report that said it accomplished the mission by redirecting the smaller asteroid orbiting the bigger one and redirecting both of them. 

Wham, bam, thank you, mam! 

 

[dmwalker 604]

1 hour ago, charliearon said:

Just read a news report that said it accomplished the mission by redirecting the smaller asteroid orbiting the bigger one and redirecting both of them.

I think they said they won't know if the orbit has been affected for a month or two. However, if the cubesats were successfully deployed, they will send images which will show the effects of the impact in a couple of days.

[martin-w 3,235]

Yeah, it's only a miniscule nudge required. In time that nudge becomes a useful deflection.

Painting one side white, or simply parking alongside so the miniscule gravitational pull of the spacecraft has an effect, has been considered.

Trouble is that you need lots of notice of an impending collision with Earth. The less time you have the more extreme the measures required.

[n4gix 4,947]

I am honestly most impressed with the success of the ion propulsion engine used in the DART package itself! This is an incredible breakthrough, IMNSHO... 🤓

[martin-w 3,235]

10 minutes ago, n4gix said:

I am honestly most impressed with the success of the ion propulsion engine used in the DART package itself! This is an incredible breakthrough, IMNSHO... 🤓

 

Yep. Ion propulsion is common of course for satellites and probes, but this guy is three timers as powerful as the previous NSTAR. Its evolutionary rather than revolutionary. In the airless vacuum of space, a little push can build up to impressive velocities. 

Nuclear Thermal and Nuclear Electric are the way forward for sizable craft.  

 

[dmwalker 604]

3 hours ago, martin-w said:

Trouble is that you need lots of notice of an impending collision with Earth.

"The key to this whole business is finding them and finding them early and it is absolutely possible within our knowledge and technology to find any object that represents a significant impact of the earth, not only years but decades or even a century in advance. Once we know that they are out there, know what their orbits are, we can predict well into the future as any represents hazard to the earth and have plenty of time to do something about it."

Lindley Johnson – NASA Planetary Defense Officer

Apophis is a good example. It was discovered in 2004 and, in subsequent years, orbital predictions were made with increasing precision. Today, there are orbital predictions up to 2117 and it is expected that the closest approach will be in 2029

Edited September 27, 2022 by dmwalker

[martin-w 3,235]

1 hour ago, dmwalker said:

The key to this whole business is finding them and finding them early and it is absolutely possible within our knowledge and technology to find any object that represents a significant impact of the earth, not only years but decades or even a century in advance.

 

Err.... except that asteroids have sneaked up on us a number of times from the direction of the sun, and given us almost no warning. That our blind spot that we must cover.

"2019 OK" was spotted just 24 hours before its closet approach and it was the biggest to get so close since Tunguska. Speed, timing, direction and the Earth's orbit can be factors that mean we miss them. 

So yes, its within out technological capability, but that capability isn't yet fully in place.

 

[Christopher Low 5,354]

....and let us not forget long period comets. The probability of one of these hitting Earth is very low compared to a near Earth asteroid, but most of them are new discoveries (which means that their trajectories are not known in advance), and they can be very large.

[dmwalker 604]

Dimorphos was, relatively speaking, a sitting target, wasn't it? I wonder how difficult it would be to home in on an asteroid traveling at over 60,000 mph.

[martin-w 3,235]

14 hours ago, n4gix said:

Well, there wasn't much to see. Not even a simulated BOOM, just a sudden LOS (loss of signal).  😴

 

Instead of a simulated boom, what about the impact and dust cloud.