Why NASA will take ‘a couple weeks’ to measure asteroid crash outcome
NASA has crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid in a world-first trial for protecting Earth from asteroid collisions.
The experiment was months in the making, and saw a 590 kilogram spaceship, around the size of a vending machine, strike the moonlet asteroid Dimorphos.
“Since we’ve smashed it in, it’s changed its orbit and now telescopes from the ground are monitoring how much that’s changed,” astrophysicist Brad Tucker told Laurel, Gary & Mark.
“It’s going to take a couple of weeks and a couple of times of going around to accurately measure how much that shift was.”
Press PLAY below to hear how big NASA hopes the shift was
IMPACT SUCCESS! Watch from #DARTMIssion’s DRACO Camera, as the vending machine-sized spacecraft successfully collides with asteroid Dimorphos, which is the size of a football stadium and poses no threat to Earth. pic.twitter.com/7bXipPkjWD
— NASA (@NASA) September 26, 2022
Image: NASA / Twitter