Column/Martin: Sci-fi comes to life in NASA asteroid mission
If I were going to write a sci-fi adventure, this paragraph might make great start:
“On Sept. 26, 2022, at 7:14 pm EDT, DART intentionally crashed into Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet in the double-asteroid system of Didymos. It was the world’s first test of the kinetic impact mitigation technique, using a spacecraft to deflect an asteroid that poses no threat to Earth, and modifying the object’s orbit. DART is a test for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards.”
But this really happened! What you just read comes from a NASA press release, a real release, not an April Fools' Day edition. This incredible action could have been ripped straight out of a science fiction thriller — yet, it came and went in what felt like one quick news cycle. Month after month after month we talk about Harry and Megan (yawn!) but come on folks — we moved an asteriod in outer space! Let me say this again: we moved an asteroid in outer space! I’m still in a state of amazement over our puny species' ability to a) consider the possibility b) envision a solution and c) actually test said solution.
I’m not into doomsday scenarios, but if you follow science, you might remember that dinosaurs ruled the Earth for something like 180 million years, until one fateful day 66 million years ago when everything changed. In a short period of time, a mass extinction event wiped out pretty much, well, life on earth. A few flying ancestors of today’s birds, some sea turtles, some crocodiles and a few plants survived.
Flash-ka-boom-the end.
The currently accepted theory of this quick extinction points to an asteroid, specifically one measuring in at about 6 to 10 miles wide. It careened into the planet, smashed into the ground and sea, filling the air with soot, debris, and vapors, poisoning the sky and filtering the light of the sun. Its impact created tidal waves that washed across the planet’s surface and set off massive fires. The asteroid mostly vaporized on impact, but the strike left a 93-mile-sized (aka longer than Cape Cod) crater centered on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula with a few meteoric remains buried in the sea floor.
Scientists say it could happen again.
Since we’d rather not end up like the dinosaurs, we’ve collectively used our clever tools and technology to try to change the outcome should another giant rock come hurtling toward us. And guess what? We were successful. Did I mention that we moved an asteroid?
NASA’s “double Asteroid Redirection Test” aka DART sent a spacecraft to smash into a small asteroid named Dimorphos. At 530 feet across, Dimorphos stacks up at about one-tenth the size of the asteroid that wiped out life on earth. And if sending a car-sized craft some 6.8 million miles into space to bump a 530-foot rock off orbit isn’t enough — NASA watched the whole thing stream live on an imager that hitchhiked along for the ride. The Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation (aka DRACO) shared a live stream of images at one image per second, providing a video-like experience for viewers who could tune into NASA to watch the whole event. But wait, there’s more! The Webb and Hubble telescopes have been watching the entire process simultaneously, too. Their follow-on data confirmed that by mid-October the asteroid’s orbit was indeed altered.
To recap, not only did we move an asteroid, but we also watched live and recorded the action from three different platforms. Take that, celebrity dramas!
During the last century, we saw the world shrink. Not literally, of course, but it grew emotionally smaller as our tools for bridging it grew larger. We now hop on planes and fly to Florida or Paris for the weekend. We tap out messages to people around the globe instantly. The technology of the “long-distance call” seems quaint and for the rising generation represents an experience found only in history books.
This century, we seem to be doing the same for the universe. We reached out and touched an asteroid so distant the spacecraft launched in November 2021 for a September 2022 assignment, traveling 10 months to reach rendezvous. It did so with pinpoint accuracy, and we watched the interaction in real-time. We saw space tourists go up and come down again. We continually crawl across the red planet Mars with multiple rovers. This week we prepare the latest moon mission Project Artemis’ Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft for a launch later this month ... all amazing feats of technology, imagination, exploration and science. I stare in awe.
You might fixate on the latest daily update in the Tom and Gisele saga, but let me say this one more time: We moved and asteroid! It doesn’t get much cooler than that.
Teresa Martin of Eastham lives, breathes and writes about the intersection of technology, business and humanity.
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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Sci-fi comes to life with move of asteroid, in column by Teresa Martin
