Posted on 09/26/2022 6:19:34 AM PDT by Red Badger
After 306 days, DART's mission will come to an end when it slams into a Colosseum-sized asteroid 7 million miles from Earth.
VIDEO AT LINK..............
This animation shows what it might look like when DART dives into the Didymos dirt.
ESA–ScienceOffice.org
In less than 12 hours, NASA's DART spacecraft will be no more. After launching atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 on Nov. 24, 2021, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test probe will make its final death dive into the asteroid Dimorphos on Monday, Sept. 26, colliding with the space rock at about 14,000 miles per hour.
We've got all the info you need to watch the grand finale live right here, including livestream links from two cameras in deep space.
First, we should reiterate there's no need to be alarmed. The asteroid Dimorphos, which circles a larger asteroid known as Didymos, poses no threat to Earth. The mission is designed as a test run of planetary defense with the intention of proving that a deep space collision can alter the orbit of a space rock. The carefully arranged death dive will destroy the DART and, if all goes to plan, alter the orbit of Dimorphos around its parent Didymos ever so slightly.
In recent weeks, the team from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory have been assessing the asteroid pair from a distance, making sure we have a firm understanding of the asteroids' orbits. Once DART has been destroyed, ground-based space telescopes will evaluate Didymos and Dimorphos to see just how much the orbit has changed.
The $308 million spacecraft's lone instrument is the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (DRACO) and it will be switched on for final dive, taking a photograph every second. Another tiny satellite, which snuck out of DART on the way to its target, will also be watching.
About three minutes or so after the collision, the shoebox-size cube (known as the Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging Asteroids) will take high-res photos of the crash site and the damage done to the 525-foot asteroid. Another mission, scheduled to launch in 2024, will also rendezvous with Didymos sometime in 2026.
But that's for later, for now, here's how you can see DART's demise.
How to watch NASA's DART coverage NASA's DART death is primetime viewing on Monday, happening just a few hours before the big Monday Night Football matchup between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys.
The spacecraft will collide with Dimorphos at 4:14 p.m. PT/7:14 p.m. ET on Monday, Sept. 26. Live coverage is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. PT/6 p.m. ET via NASA TV.
Our YouTube channel, CNET Highlights, will have two streams. The main livestream and a feed from the spacecraft's DRACO camera. NASA notes that the feed will mostly be black once it switches on, but as the spacecraft approaches, the asteroid pair will come into view. It should be pretty thrilling.
Here's how that time translates to different zones:
US: Sep. 26, 4:14 p.m. PT/7:14 p.m. ET
Brazil: Sep. 26 , 8:14 p.m. (Federal District)
UK: Sep. 26, 11:14 p.m.
South Africa: Sep. 27, 1:14 a.m.
Russia: Sep. 27, 2:14 a.m. (Moscow)
United Arab Emirates: Sep. 27, 3:14 a.m.
India: Sep. 27, 4:44 a.m.
China: Sep. 27, 7:14 a.m.
Japan: Sep. 27, 8:14 a.m.
Australia: Sep. 27, 9:14 a.m. AEST
Sounds awesome. Where can I find out more about DART?
When DART launched back in November 2021, CNET's Monisha Ravisetti put together this handy explainer about the mission and its goals. The team at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory also has a ton of resources about the mission, including handy interactives and the latest updates.
Make sure to check back here for the livestream links closer to launch and check out CNET Science for more space stories.
First published on Sept. 20, 2022 at 9:45 p.m. PT.
DART Ping!......................
What could possibly go wrong?
Didn’t they read “Lucifer’s Hammer”?/s
“colliding with the space rock at about 14,000 miles per hour”
Relative to earth, relative to the space rock, what? All speeds are relative.
That’s about the same speed of an AR-15 bullet according to Biden.........................
That’s about the same speed of an AR-15 bullet according to Biden.........................
Good book!
Should have been a movie!.................
It poses no threat to Earth, until we knock it into a new course, which will hit D.C. Oh wait....
sure. it was no threat to earth until you disturbed its orbit, now in 263,000 years it will be on a collision course with us... Cow. Deer. Ewe.
Bump for 7:14 pm viewing
Does the relative speed really matter? This is pretty extraordinary engineering, given the size of the objects and the distance from the earth. to me, at least.
They are just going to make it mad.
This is NASA right?? Watch them miss.
Anyone recall the crash of one of the Mars probes when NASA used Meters instead English System measurements?
The Mars Climate Orbiter, built at a cost of $125 million, was a 338-kilogram robotic space probe launched by NASA on December 11, 1998 to study the Martian climate, Martian atmosphere, and surface changes. In addition, its function was to act as the communications relay in the Mars Surveyor ’98 program for the Mars Polar Lander. The navigation team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) used the metric system of millimeters and meters in its calculations, while Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver, Colorado, which designed and built the spacecraft, provided crucial acceleration data in the English system of inches, feet, and pounds. JPL engineers did not take into consideration that the units had been converted, i.e., the acceleration readings measured in English units of pound-seconds^2 for a metric measure of force called newton-seconds^2. In a sense, the spacecraft was lost in translation.
Slamming into an astroid can have unpredictable results. It could shatter and send fragments in an unwanted direction. Better to send a rocket engine that can be turned on remotely, land it on the astroid, and turn it on at the right time to nudge the Asteroide to a safe path.
By the way, the spellings of astroid came from my speakwrite.
Rocks.
They could aim a rock with exterior steering rockets............
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