(WWJ) – Last month NASA played out a real-life “Armageddon,” ramming a spacecraft into an asteroid to see if we’d be able to alter its course.
The purpose? So we could know whether it would be possible to divert a potentially devastating Earthbound asteroid in the future.
Well, after slamming into Dimorphos – the smaller minor-planet moon of a double asteroid – the results are in, as Mike Murray of the Delta College Planetarium in Bay City told WWJ’s Erin Vee on this week’s edition of “All Over the Space.”
And Murray says the results are even better than NASA was hoping for.
“They hoped they could alter it by as much as 11 minutes in its orbital period around its larger parent asteroid. But they would have been happy with only a two-minute change,” Murray said.
“Well guess what. They altered it by more than 30 minutes. So a big success story there.”
NASA’s latest success in space is a big deal, not only here in the U.S., but for the space community as a whole. Murray says while Dimorphos never posed a threat to Earth, it’s good to see positive results.
“We can use a satellite as a projectile and be able to just give it a tiny nudge. And the sooner we can do that, the better the chances of moving an asteroid out of the way, out of collision course,” he said.
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Murray goes on to explain just how they measured the DART mission’s success. Also on this episode of “All Over the Space,” they dive into a dazzling display of fireballs in the early morning sky on-tap for next week and talk about upcoming events at the planetarium.
More information on the Delta College Planetarium in Bay City can be found online. Follow the planetarium on Facebook and Instagram for the latest news and updates.
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