On Monday (Sept. 26) at 7:14 p.m. EDT (2314 GMT), NASA will deliberately crash a spacecraft into an asteroid — and also you may have the ability to see it reside.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is a planetary protection mission designed to check a technique of redirecting an Earth-bound asteroid by crashing a spacecraft into it to change its trajectory. This take a look at mission is focusing on the moonlet Dimorphos, a small celestial physique orbiting the asteroid Didymos about 7 million miles (11 million kilometers) away from Earth. (That is only a take a look at, and neither Dimorphos nor Didymos poses any menace to our planet.)
Whereas NASA will air reside protection on NASA TV, NASA’s web site and NASA social media pages, it will solely present the moments main as much as impression. The DART probe’s sole instrument, the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Digicam for Optical navigation (DRACO), will beam again roughly one picture per second because it approaches its goal, which NASA will share each in a dedicated livestream and in a broadcast event.
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However the digital camera will, after all, stop operations when it slams into Dimorphos at a pace of 4.1 miles per second (6.6 km/s). However the Rome-based Digital Telescope Mission hopes to livestream the rapid aftermath of the DART impression in real-time with ground-based telescopes.
As a result of the Digital Telescope Mission’s personal telescopes aren’t ideally positioned to view the impression, the group has partnered with two South African observatories: Klein Karoo Observatory, operated by newbie astronomer Berto Monard, and the Mahikeng Astronomical Observatory of the North West College.
The livestream from the telescopes will start on Monday at 6:30 p.m. EDT (2230 GMT) on the Virtual Telescope Project’s website; you can even watch within the window above courtesy of the undertaking.
The view from the bottom based mostly telescopes will not be detailed — the Didymos system is only a level within the sky as seen from Earth — but when all goes based on plan, it is likely to be doable to see elevated brightness throughout and after impression.
For a better look, we’ll have to attend. Earlier this month, DART ejected the Italian Area Company’s Light Italian Cubesat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube), which is able to fly previous the impression website three minutes later. These pictures will doubtless be launched inside a day or so of impression.
And should you aren’t capable of tune in reside, the Digital Telescope Mission will add its recorded video to its archives.
Comply with Stefanie Waldek on Twitter @StefanieWaldek. Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
