NASA DART Mission First Planetary Defense Test Mission

NASA launched its first planetary defense test mission named 'Double Asteroid Redirection Test' (DART) on 24 November 2021. The DART spacecraft was launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

This mission will test new technology to be prepared in the event of an asteroid coming towards Earth in the future.

The purpose of the Dart mission is to test newly developed technology that would allow a spacecraft to hit an asteroid and change its direction.

After the spacecraft collides with the asteroid, scientists will study its impact on the asteroid and spacecraft with telescopes on Earth.

The target of this spacecraft is a small moonlet, which is called 'Dimorphos'. Dimorphos orbits a large asteroid called Didymos. However, there is no danger to the earth from both of them.

According to NASA, Dimorphos has a diameter of about 530 feet (160 m) and Didymos has a diameter of about 2,560 feet (780 m).

The dart is shaped like a golf cart. It may hit 'Dimorphos' between 26 September 2022 to 2 October 2022, until Didymos and Dimorphos will be a relatively close 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth.

'DART' is the first test of kinetic impactor technology to change the speed of an asteroid in space. It is a suicide mission and the spacecraft will be completely destroyed.

NASA says it has launched the Dart mission to protect Earth from any future threats from giant space rocks.  "We are trying to learn how to overcome such a threat."

What is Asteroid Along with the planets, satellites in our solar system, many asteroids are also revolving around the Sun. According to scientists, these asteroids are their debris left during the formation of planets etc., which are moving in space.

Asteroids can be of any size and how big or small. Maharashtra's Lonar Lake was formed due to an asteroid hitting the Earth.

Sometimes asteroids can cause great destruction by colliding with the Earth. It is believed that the dinosaurs were wiped out from the earth due to an asteroid.

Scientists estimate that asteroids 140 meters or more in size collide once every 20,000 years. And some of them are quite close to Earth.

There are 10,000 known asteroids near Earth, but none have a significant chance of colliding in the next 100 years.

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