Its original perihelion point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid or comet where it is nearest to the Sun was calculated to occur well inside Earth’s orbit at about 0. "It's such an exciting mission," Andy Cheng, lead investigator of DART, said in November. Upon its discovery Comet Elenin was traveling very near the ecliptic plane at more than 4 Astronomical Units (375 million miles) from the Sun and headed inbound towards it. Coming in at 15,000 miles per hour, DART won't destroy Dimorphos, but "give it a small nudge." Doing so will affect the asteroids orbit by about 1%, which would be enough to divert one from Earth. Comets are cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust, according to NASA. The collision will happen about 6.8 million miles from Earth. Swift-Tuttle (officially designated 109P/Swift-Tuttle) is a periodic comet that orbits our sun every 133 years. Asteroid 99942 Apophis is a near-Earth object (NEO) estimated to be about 1,100 feet (340 meters) across. It can also be viewed on their social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Comet heading towards earth tv#
NASA will live stream the event on NASA TV and their website. Where can I watch the DART mission impact? Ten days beforehand, DART will release a tiny observation spacecraft that will capture the collision. NASA's live coverage of the event will begin at 6 p.m. After Apophis was discovered in 2004, the asteroid was given a 2.7 chance of hitting Earth in 2029, causing a great deal of. When will DART hit the asteroid Dimorphos?ĭART will complete its 10-month journey through space on Sept. 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," Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer for NASA, said in November.
"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. There currently is no threat to us, scientists say. Regardless of the outcome, the mission will give astronomers and scientists "important data" on what the response would be should a dangerous asteroid have a collision course with Earth. Scientists say neither asteroid is headed towards Earth, but with Dimorphos at an estimated 520 feet long, it is an asteroid that could cause significant damage if it were to hit Earth, NASA says. The space agency's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, will crash into the asteroid Dimorphos, which orbits a larger asteroid named Didymos, next month.
Luckily, NASA will test out its plan in case it ever happens. Plus, there's been renewed interest in objects hurtling toward us since the popularity of the 2021 doomsday comedy "Don't Look Up." Asteroids frequently get close to hitting Earth, but it's been over 65 million years since a catastrophic one has impacted our planet.
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