26 Sep 2022 - Nasa Will Smash A Spaceship Worth 300million-lbs Sterling Into An Asteroid ???

26 sep 2022
NASA will smash a 300 Million lbs sterling spaceship
into an asteroid at 14,000 mph
tonight (26 sep) for the first time ever ???
why ? who knows ?

 

NASA will smash £300m spaceship into asteroid at 14,000mph tonight for first time ever

NASA will smash £300m spaceship into asteroid at 14,000mph tonight for first time ever (ladbible.com)
https://www.ladbible.com/news/nasa-...BF3A9PuHHU9qde30eT9VFtDiLc0Gyn8iqrcbVbSpWUJDI

Featured Image Credit: NASA/Pixabay
NASA plans to quite literally smash a £300m spaceship into an asteroid at 14,000mph tonight, for the first time ever.
The test is dubbed as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART and will be the world’s first full scale test to see if the spacecraft can defend the Earth from a small asteroid or comet.
The test crash is designed for a Don’t Look Up scenario, where if a threatening astroid was to ever hit the earth, we'd be a bit more prepared.

Credit: Netflix

The idea is that if the spaceship is able to nudge the astroid by just one percent, it could save the planet from any major damage.
Planetary defence officer for NASA Lindley Johnson said: "We don't want to be in a situation where an asteroid is headed toward Earth and then have to be testing this kind of capability.
"We want to know about both how the spacecraft works and what the reaction will be by the asteroid to the impact before we ever get in a situation like that.

The SpaceX rocket carrying DART launched last November. Credit: APFootage / Alamy Stock Photo

"We don’t want to, at the last minute, say, ‘Oh, here’s something we hadn’t thought about or phenomena we hadn’t considered'.
"We want to be sure that any change we see is entirely due to what DART did.”

She added: "You would just give this asteroid a small nudge, which would add up to a big change in its future position, and then the asteroid and Earth wouldn't be on the collision course.

"You would just give this asteroid a small nudge, which would add up to a big change in its future position, and then the asteroid and Earth wouldn't be on the collision course."

 

NASA will smash £300m spaceship into asteroid at 14,000mph tonight for first time ever


Anish Vij
Published 11:01, 26 September 2022 BST
| Last updated 11:16, 26 September 2022 BST

Featured Image Credit: NASA/Pixabay
NASA plans to quite literally smash a £300m spaceship into an asteroid at 14,000mph tonight, for the first time ever.
The test is dubbed as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART and will be the world’s first full scale test to see if the spacecraft can defend the Earth from a small asteroid or comet.
The test crash is designed for a Don’t Look Up scenario, where if a threatening astroid was to ever hit the earth, we'd be a bit more prepared.

Credit: Netflix

The idea is that if the spaceship is able to nudge the astroid by just one percent, it could save the planet from any major damage.
Planetary defence officer for NASA Lindley Johnson said: "We don't want to be in a situation where an asteroid is headed toward Earth and then have to be testing this kind of capability.
"We want to know about both how the spacecraft works and what the reaction will be by the asteroid to the impact before we ever get in a situation like that.

The SpaceX rocket carrying DART launched last November. Credit: APFootage / Alamy Stock Photo

"We don’t want to, at the last minute, say, ‘Oh, here’s something we hadn’t thought about or phenomena we hadn’t considered'.
"We want to be sure that any change we see is entirely due to what DART did.”
She added: "You would just give this asteroid a small nudge, which would add up to a big change in its future position, and then the asteroid and Earth wouldn't be on the collision course.

"You would just give this asteroid a small nudge, which would add up to a big change in its future position, and then the asteroid and Earth wouldn't be on the collision course."




An illustration of DART. Credit: MediaPunch Inc / Alamy Stock Photo
Professor Alan Fitzsimmons from Queen’s University, a member of the NASA DART Investigation Team, and the ESA Hera Science Management Board, said: "DART will give us our first proof that we have the technology to prevent a small asteroid hitting Earth.
"I've been waiting 20 years to see a Planetary Defence test to be performed.

"The teams at NASA and APL are doing exactly what we need to do.
"Once the DART and follow-up Hera mission have been successfully completed, we'll have a much better idea how to protect ourselves against a catastrophic impact.
"The film may have been called Don't Look Up, but it's a good job we are."
The crash is due to happen at 12.14am GMT early tomorrow morning (27 September).
Topics: Space, World News

Anish Vij
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NASA Is Testing An Asteroid Defence Probe To Protect Earth From Rogue Space Rocks


Hannah Blackiston
Published 0:16, 24 November 2021 GMT
| Last updated 9:43, 24 November 2021 GMT

Featured Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins, APL/Steve Gribben/Touchstone
NASA is about to go full Armageddon by launching a Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) to prepare for any rogue asteroids that come flying towards Earth.
After years of study, NASA is launching its first space probe which will aim to hit an asteroid and alter its speed and course.
The DART is an un-crewed spacecraft that will be attached to a SpaceX rocket. It will then embark on a 10-month collision course with a small moon named Dimorphos.

The spacecraft, which is around the size of a golf cart, will hit Dimorphos at almost 25,000 km per hour and will hopefully (marginally) impact the moon's speed and orbit.
The theory is that with enough preparation time, humans will be able to transfer enough energy into a speeding rock to alter its trajectory and force it away from a collision with Earth.
The number one goal of course is to avoid an impact on the level of the one that took out the dinosaurs. As recently as 2013 a meteor the size of a four-storey building exploded in Russia, which injured more than 1,600 people.

"This test is to demonstrate that this technology is mature enough so that it would be ready if an actual asteroid impact threat were detected," Lindley Johnson, NASA's planetary defence officer, said.
Andy Cheng, lead investigator for the mission at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, which built and manages the spacecraft, told Bloomberg the test was to see how much the impact would affect the rock.
"It's all about measuring the momentum transfer: How much momentum do we put into the asteroid by hitting it with the spacecraft?" he said.

00:0200:42

DART will use laser targeting and high-resolution technology to autonomously select an impact point on the target. It will send images back to Earth throughout the process, both from the craft and from a nearby satellite.

The test has been described as 'one of the most consequential missions ever undertaken by NASA', but the DART process has been long-running and part of several other processes to protect Earth from asteroids.
The space agency said: "While no known asteroid larger than 140 metres in size has a significant chance to hit Earth for the next 100 years, less than half of the estimated 25,000 [near-Earth objects] that are 140 metres and larger in size have been found to date."
Should DART be successful, NASA already has a number of other trajectory-altering plans in the pipeline.

This includes a 'gravity tractor', which would see a small spacecraft attached to an asteroid and change its orbit by enlarging its mass.
Topics: News, Nasa, space

Hannah Blackiston
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NASA unveils plan to purposely crash $330 million spacecraft into asteroid


Charisa Bossinakis
Published 7:32, 06 September 2022 BST
| Last updated 7:32, 06 September 2022 BST

Featured Image Credit: MediaPunch Inc/Alamy Stock Photo .Bill Ingalls/UPI/Alamy Live News
NASA has revealed its plan to purposely crash a $330 million (AUD $485m or £285m) spacecraft into an asteroid to see if it can survive the impact.
In a few week's time, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART will be the world’s first full scale test to see if the spacecraft can defend the Earth from a deadly asteroid or comet.
Yes, this sounds like something out of the Hollywood sci-fi film Don’t Look Up.
However, this time we don’t have the likes of Leo Dicaprio or J-Law attempting to save us. Instead, NASA will use one of the most powerful telescopes to analyse the impact that the 525-foot-wide asteroid known as ‘Dimorphos’ will have on DART.

While the asteroid (thankfully) is not hitting the Earth anytime soon, scientists say that if it were to hit the blue planet, it would cause significant damage.
According to USA TODAY planetary defence officer for NASA Lindley Johnson said: “We don't want to be in a situation where an asteroid is headed toward Earth and then have to be testing this kind of capability."
He added: “We want to know about both how the spacecraft works and what the reaction will be by the asteroid to the impact before we ever get in a situation like that.”


Credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA/Alamy Live News
Astronomer with Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and co-lead of the July observation campaign Nick Moskovitz said in a statement that now is the perfect time to execute the test to prevent the worst from unfolding.
“The before-and-after nature of this experiment requires exquisite knowledge of the asteroid system before we do anything to it,” he said
“We don’t want to, at the last minute, say, ‘Oh, here’s something we hadn’t thought about or phenomena we hadn’t considered.’ We want to be sure that any change we see is entirely due to what DART did.”

USA TODAY also reported that DART isn’t intended to destroy ‘Dimorphos’ but rather give it a slight ‘nudge’, which could affect its orbit around Didymos by about 1 per cent.
Although that may sound minor, according to the lead coordinator for DART Nancy Chabot, the results could save humankind.
She said: "You would just give this asteroid a small nudge, which would add up to a big change in its future position, and then the asteroid and Earth wouldn't be on the collision course.”
Topics: News, Science, NASA, Technology

Charisa Bossinakis
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Five Planets Aligning For First Time In 18 Years Will Be Visible From UK Tomorrow


Poppy Bilderbeck
Published 10:58, 23 June 2022 BST
| Last updated 16:10, 23 June 2022 BST

Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock
UK stargazers are being urged to keep a look out as a rare seven planet alignment is set to take place tomorrow.
The weather is set to turn from a series of sunny and hot days into more dreary days of rain, so why not perk yourself up with a spot of stargazing?
Tomorrow (24 June), seven planets of the Solar System are set to form in a line in the sky - an arrangement often termed by astronomers as a 'planetary parade'.

Seven planets, five visible to the naked eye, are set to align and be seen from Earth tomorrow. Credit: Sky and Telescope Illustration

Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus will all align tomorrow for the first time in 18 years.
Across the sky, they will span from the east to the south. Although, in the southern latitude they will span from north to east.
However, only Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will be visible to the naked eye from Earth, making only five of the seven planets appear in a line.

For the best chances of seeing the special alignment, UK gazers are advised to get up an hour before the crack of dawn in order to catch a glimpse.
Or if you fancy taking a trip down to an area in the southern Hemisphere, the planets are noted as climbing higher and rising earlier there.
This means you'd be able to nab a clearer view.

This alignment is even more special due to another sighting which is set to take place and the waning crescent Moon is set to be visible inbetween Venus and Mars.
However, the moon won't appear in alignment with the planets.
Astronomer and founder of Stargazing London, Tom Kerss, told The Sun: "It's well worth setting an early alarm and peering out from your garden, or any south/east-facing window or balcony available to you.

"The planets are easy to pick out even in the relatively light summer sky. Unlike stars, they don't appear to twinkle, and Mars is noticeably orange, whereas Saturn is faintly golden.
"The inner planets, Mercury and Venus, don't get very high above the horizon before sunrise with Mercury, in particular, climbing less than eight degrees before it fades out of view.
"To appreciate them, you'll need a very low - preferably flat - eastern horizon, free from obstructions like trees or buildings. It may be worth scoping out a good viewing spot ahead of time to improve your chances."

Amateur astronomer and science communicator Kevin Walsh added that you'll be able to see the phenomenon is 'you look due East about 45 minutes before sunrise'.
"For those in the North East of the UK, this will be around 3:30 a.m, and the South West around 4:00 a.m.
"Mercury will appear closest to the horizon around East North East and we will have around 30-40 minutes of visibility before Twilight interferes. Saturn will appear in the sky towards the South East," he said.
It's important to note that the planets don't actually form in a perfect line, their formation just appears in such a way because of our perspective on Earth.

The moon won't appear in the alignment, sadly. Credit: Alamy
The last time the seven planets aligned in such a way was in 2004 and the next time they will align in such a parade is predicted as being 8 September, 2040.
"The alignments like the one in 1962 and in 2000 are fairly common. The five naked-eye planets cluster together in the sky within a circle 25 degrees or less in diameter once every 57 years, on average," NASA Science stated.
So don't hang about. Grab your telescope, set your alarm clock and get out before dawn tomorrow in time to see the planets out on parade.
Topics: Science, Space

Poppy Bilderbeck
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Three Tonnes Of Space Junk Set To Smash Into The Moon At Nearly 10,000km/h Today


Rachel Lang
Published 2:09, 04 March 2022 GMT
| Last updated 2:09, 04 March 2022 GMT

Featured Image Credit: frans lemmens/Zenobillis/Alamy Stock Photo
The moon is set for a facelift today (March 4) as three tonnes of space junk set to crash at a blistering speed of 9,334 kilometres per hour.
The hurtling mass is actually a leftover rocket, initially thought to have once belonged Elon Musk's SpaceX program.
But experts now think it might have come from someone else.

It was initially thought that the junk set to hit the moon was thanks to Elon Musk's SpaceX program. Credit: ZUMA Press Inc/Alamy Stock Photo

The crash will also send moon dust and potentially rock flying into space.
Telescopes will not be able to see the new crater, so it could take months to confirm the size of the impact left on the face of the moon using satellite images.
Astronomer Bill Gray initially thought the space junk was the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
But he now believes the object set to smash into the moon is a Chang'e 5-T1 booster, which would belong to the third stage of a Chinese rocket that sent a test sample capsule to the Moon back in 2014.

Gray told The Associated Press that he now doesn't see how the item that's on track to hit the moon could be anything but the Chinese rocket.
"I've become a little bit more cautious of such matters, but I really just don't see any way it could be anything else," he said.
In February, Deputy Director of the Foreign Ministry Wang Wenbin refuted the suggestion the item could have belonged to China.

"According to China’s monitoring, the upper stage of the Chang’e-5 mission rocket has fallen through the Earth’s atmosphere in a safe manner and burnt up completely," he said.
Gray revealed that space junk rarely makes impact with the moon, describing toay's celestial crash as the 'first unintentional case' that he is aware of.
The astronomer also tracked the orbit of the moon and the rogue space junk in order to ascertain when the discarded rocket would make impact.

"I keep track of a dozen or so objects in 'high', near-moon orbits, mostly so that the folks looking for asteroids will know where they are (and can ignore them; they're looking for rocks, not junk)," Gray said.
He also stated he had hoped the junk would make impact on the light side of the moon - so that the any leftover crater would be visible, instead of having to wait months for satellite imagery to reveal the aftermath.
All data and simulations have shown Gray his preferred collision is not possible, so the astronomer will have to wait and see like the rest of us.
Topics: Space, News, China, Elon Musk

Rachel Lang