Hump Day open thread: Knocking down asteroids
Imagine if the dinosaurs had had some way to survive an asteroid strike, or even avoid one all together, through technology. For one thing, hopefully they wouldn't have developed social media. But that's neither here nor there; they didn't, they died, and they allowed our small, furry ancestors to evolve into the galaxy brains we are now.
However, asteroid strikes which would destroy all human civilization haven't decreased in risk. But now we have a defense.
The DART project from NASA was developed to test if we could deflect an oncoming asteroid. (Contrary to movies like "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact", we'd have quite a bit of time to detect and counteract a deadly heap of rock.) On September 26, the ship impacted on the asteroid Dimorphos. We all cheered as we avenged our dinosaur ancestors. But the proof in the pudding was whether the strike deflected the asteroid, and by how much.
Well:
Now the DART team has an answer: It worked—even better than expected. “For the first time ever, humanity has changed the orbit of a planetary body,” said Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA headquarters in Washington, at a press conference today revealing the result.
The team would have considered a 10-minute difference a success, said NASA chief Bill Nelson. But DART actually shortened the asteroid’s orbit by a whopping 32 minutes. Dimorphos now takes only about 11 hours and 23 minutes to circle its partner, he said—a significant change, meaning that it is indeed possible to deflect a small asteroid’s path. “NASA is serious about defending the planet,” he said.
DART knocked Dimorphos into the bleachers. For the first time, humanity has a protection against that inevitable day, when another space object makes a beeline for Earth.
All the news is about the worst of humanity. The murderers, rapists, fraudsters, abusers. If it bleeds, it leads. And I'm not saying we should pay no attention to these subjects. But when that's all we're fed, we forget that human beings can do amazing things. Like send a small ship millions of miles away, have it crash against an object in space, and do something humans have never done before. We are far more than violent, mindless brutes.
Happy Hump Day, everyone.