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NASA hails ‘new era’ with historic planetary defence test

A NASA spacecraft with specialist guidance from Australian tracking systems has crashed into a deep space asteroid in a dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock slams into Earth.

The multimillion-dollar “vending machine-sized” rocket collided head-on with an asteroid the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza about 9.15am (AEST) on Tuesday, in what was the world’s first full-scale planetary defence test.

The 570-kilogram spacecraft named Dart and the small asteroid known as Dimorphos crashed into one another at high speed as part of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission.

“Impact success!!” NASA tweeted moments after the collision.

It is the first time NASA has tried to change the motion of a natural celestial body in space.

The test was intended to determine if intentionally crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid was an effective way to change its course. Scientists expected Tuesday’s crash would shift Dimorphos slightly and make it more gravitationally bound to Didymos, the larger asteroid in the system.

The NASA bunker broke out into cheers and applause as the test was deemed a success.

“We’re embarking on a new era of humankind, an era in which we potentially have the capability to protect ourselves from something like a dangerous, hazardous asteroid impact,” NASA’s planetary science division chief Lori Glaze said.

“What an amazing thing. We’ve never had that capability before.”

CSIRO NASA tracking system spokesman Glen Nagle said the test, conducted 11 million kilometres from Earth, posed no threat to Earth.

“This is the first of a series of planetary protection missions,” he said on Monday.

“We want to have a better chance than the dinosaurs had 65 million years ago. All they could do is look up and go, ‘Oh asteroid’.”

While no known asteroid larger than 140 metres in size has a significant chance of hitting Earth for the next 100 years, it’s estimated only about 40 per cent have been identified to date.

The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex received the final signals from the spacecraft as it approached and impacted Dimorphos.

It also captured images and data from a cubesat module, which already separated from Dart.

The European Space Agency’s deep space tracking station in Western Australia also supported the mission.

Around the world, other ground-based observatories will observe the asteroid system to see if Dart successfully shifted Dimorphos’ course The James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Lucy mission will also observe the aftermath.

Data from the mission will be used by scientists to estimate the mass of the asteroid, its surface type and the impact site.

In 2024, the ESA’s Hera mission will launch to continue to study the impact.

– with AAP

Topics: NASA
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