| |  | | | Nicola Adam | | Associate Editor |
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Good evening, As we all worry about the day-to-day concerns, what’s for dinner and coping with our lives, there is something almost comforting about knowing that someone, somewhere, is dealing with any troublesome incoming asteroids - no, really.
You can strike that one off your to-do list because, luckily Nasa is testing our defensive systems for us.
In something out of a sci-fi film, Nasa is set to launch a mission that will see a spacecraft crash into an asteroid in a bid to smash it off course.
The double asteroid redirection test (Dart) will test defence technologies for preventing a hazardous asteroid impacting Earth.
It aims to prove that a spacecraft can autonomously navigate to a target asteroid and intentionally collide with it - called a kinetic impact - at roughly four miles per second (six kilometres per second).
The aforementioned asteroid IS real - it’s not an immediate danger to earth however and this is just a test. For context, no (known) asteroid larger than 140 metres in size has a significant chance of hitting Earth for the next 100 years.
But all the same it’s nice to know someone has our back on something. Have a great evening and if you venture out, wrap up warm! Regards, Nicola | |
