                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                              2022 September 27

                     DART: Impact on Asteroid Dimorphos
                      Video Credit: NASA, JHUAPL, DART

   Explanation: Could humanity deflect an asteroid headed for Earth? Yes.
   Deadly impacts from large asteroids have happened before in Earth's
   past, sometimes causing mass extinctions of life. To help protect our
   Earth from some potential future impacts, NASA tested a new planetary
   defense mechanism yesterday by crashing the robotic Double Asteroid
   Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft into Dimorphos, a small asteroid
   spanning about 170-meters across. As shown in the featured video, the
   impact was a success. Ideally, if impacted early enough, even the kick
   from a small spacecraft can deflect a large asteroid enough to miss the
   Earth. In the video, DART is seen in a time-lapse video first passing
   larger Didymos, on the left, and then approaching the smaller
   Dimorphos. Although the video ends abruptly with DART's crash,
   observations monitoring the changed orbit of Dimorphos -- from
   spacecraft and telescopes around the world -- have just begun.

                       Tomorrow's picture: furious sky
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
                           NASA Science Activation
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

