NASA Dart Mission has destroyed a Spacecraft by hitting a 570 kg Asteroid

The American space agency NASA has destroyed one of its spacecraft by hitting an asteroid with great skill and success during an experiment in space. Through this mission, NASA wants to find out how difficult it can be to stop a large space rock from hitting the Earth.

This experiment of hitting a spaceship with a big rock in space has been done about one million kilometers away from the earth. And the asteroid targeted by the spacecraft is named Dimorphos while the mission is called Dart mission.

The US space agency NASA says that the space rock is not currently on a collision course or orbit and that the experiment will not accidentally or accidentally send the rock to Earth.

The spacecraft sent back images of the entire experiment and every second of its journey to impact the asteroid.

The experiment has been observed by more than two dozen space telescopes on earth, including the James Webb, the largest telescope the distance between the orbits of the asteroids Dimorphos and Didymos in space.

This mission was to test the theory that a spacecraft would hit a 160-meter-wide asteroid called Dimorphos at a speed of about 20,000 to 22,000 km.

The idea behind this process is to slow down the asteroid to slightly change its trajectory towards the Earth so that the Earth doesn't become a target. Provided that do this from a good distance from the ground.

According to the preliminary calculation of the scientists, the spacecraft in this experiment has only 17 meters from the center of the asteroid.

Although it will take some time for NASA scientists to know if their experiment was successful, Lori Glaze, director of space science at NASA, is confident that some important results have been obtained.

" We are entering an era for humankind, a time in which we might have the option to shield ourselves from the effect of a risky asteroid," he told reporters. How amazing. We never had this capability before.

NASA promised to capture stunning images of the entire experiment as soon as the spacecraft hits the 570 kg asteroid.

Dr. Nancy Chabot of Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory explained the mission: "The DART mission is the first defense experiment in space in which a spacecraft is demonstrated to collide with an asteroid to protect the asteroid in space." The direction can be changed slightly.'

Before this Dart mission, scientists said that it will be very difficult for the spacecraft to target this asteroid named Dimorphos because the NASA spacecraft will be able to distinguish between the 780 meter780-meter-wide Didymos and Dimorphos in the last 50 minutes. And will be able to hit its original target.

After the mission, he says that everything went according to plan and the Dart mission hit its target by distinguishing between asteroid Dimorphos and asteroid Didymos.

Dr. Andy Riv. kin, head of the mission at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, told the BBC: 'It's exactly what the program was designed to do, it's exactly what it says on the box. '

Fortunately, the story of this entire mission does not end here because the spacecraft involved in this Dart mission also launched a 14 kg satellite named Lycia Cube and Simone Perrotta manufactured by Italy after three minutes. The purpose of this is to find out what happens after the dart hits the asteroid. This satellite will record all this process. The satellite will capture images of the experiment from a distance of about 50 km during this mission and will return images to Earth over the next few days.

According to space surveys and statistical data, we have identified 95% of giant asteroids in space that, if they collided with Earth, could completely wipe out human life on Earth (but they might not, (Their orbits are calculated so they cannot come close to Earth.)

But despite these, many small asteroids in space can wreak havoc after hitting the Earth, be it regionally or at the level of a specific city.

According to scientists, if an asteroid like Dimorphos were to hit the Earth (which it won't), it could create a crater a kilometer wide and hundreds of meters deep, and the shockwaves from the impact could have severe effects on nearby areas.

Four years from now, the European Space Agency will have three spacecraft, collectively known as the HERA mission, investigating the aftermath of the experiment on Didymos and Dimorphos.