The DART spacecraft will hit a binary asteroid system in the first planetary defense test of its kind. NASA prepares a live broadcast of the event.
Came the day. This Monday, September 26, NASA will conduct its first planetary defense test when its DART probe crashes into a binary asteroid .
Didymos and Dimorphos do not represent any danger to Earth, but the space agency wants to know if it is possible to divert these types of stars in the event of a global emergency: will it be possible to modify their movement?
How to see it live?
To see the planetary defense test, we just need to join the official NASA stream this Monday, September 26.
For Peru, the impact time is at 18:14. However, the transmission will start at 4:30 p.m. and will last until 7:00 p.m. to see the final report of the day.
DART vs. Dimorphos: Who will win?
Didymos and Dimorphos are located 11 million kilometers from the planet and are 750 and 150 meters in diameter, respectively.
Dimorphos , the smallest in size, behaves like a moon with Didymos, orbiting it as they wander through space.
NASA will crash DART (Double Asteroid Redirection) on Dimorphos to change its speed, altering its orbital period in conditions that wait to be measured from Earth. In short, it will divert the asteroid from its usual path.
DART, built by the Johns Hopkins University Physics Laboratory, will not survive the impact, but it will mark a before and after in terms of planetary defense, an increasingly common branch in space agencies around the world.