Earlier this week, NASA started a mission that is right out of a Hollywood script.
With growing concerns of damage that could be done if a large asteroid were to hit the earth, a new mission was created to possibly knock the asteroid off a destructive path.
NASA launched a new spacecraft with the mission of smashing directly into an asteroid.
Real-Life Armageddon
Most of you have probably seen the movie “Armageddon.”
Bruce Willis stars as a driller sent up to space to land on an asteroid to plant an explosive device to blow it up before it slams into our planet.
Before something like that happens in real life, NASA is already working on ways to prevent such mass destruction if we actually find ourselves in that predicament.
The answer is something called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft.
The DART lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The cost of the project is $330 million.
The plan is for the craft to hit its target on September 2022.
The target is an asteroid called Dimorphos.
This is a massive rock that measures 525 feet across.
The craft will be traveling at an estimated 15,000 mph when the collision takes place.
Amazingly, it will not actually destroy the rock but simply nudge it off course.
The rock is currently no threat to our planet, but it was chosen to give scientists a better understanding of whether we can redirect an asteroid of this size on a collision course with earth.
Nancy Chabot of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, who is a mission official, stated that if successful, the nudge “would add up to a big change in its future position, and then the asteroid and the Earth wouldn’t be on a collision course.”
Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA, added, “Although there isn’t a currently known asteroid that’s on an impact course with the earth, we do know that there is a large population of near-Earth asteroids out there.
“The key to planetary defense is finding them well before they are an impact threat.”
Do you think this mission will work?
Tell us what you think in the comments section below.
Source: Fox News
