October 11, 2022

Noa Essner

10th Grade

Ramaz Upper School

Throughout history, the objectives of space agencies’ projects worldwide were to expand humanity’s knowledge of the universe and how it works beyond its limited comprehension. Among all these incredible missions, however, none have previously considered the benefits of allocating more resources to design projects in a field known as “planetary defense.” This changed when in September 2022, NASA paved the way to protect the Earth should a celestial body be aimed to crash into it.

For a celestial object, namely an asteroid or meteorite, to crash into Earth, Jupiter's gravity would have to draw it from the Asteroid Belt, located between Jupiter and Mars, and oftentimes, these space rocks are set on the path to eventually hit Earth. Astronomers can usually predict when an asteroid will crash into Earth by comparing pictures of objects on separate dates. Objects in space usually appear static and in the same position in each photograph, so when they notice that something has shifted between the two pictures, they can calculate the object’s orbital speed, and period, as well as whether or not it poses a threat to Earth. The DART rocket sent into space was equipped with a navigation system, a high-tech camera that sent footage down to Earth, as well as identification software that enabled it to discern which of the two asteroids, Dimorphus or Didymos, was its selected target (in this case it was the former because it is smaller). After traveling 56,000 miles through outer space, it crashed into Dimorphus at 14,000 miles per hour, thus achieving the anticipated objective. NASA successfully and permanently shortened Dimorphus’ orbit around Didymos by 32 minutes, the threshold for success is at least a ten-minute shift in its orbital period. Now, regardless of its size, astronomers and engineers have the technology to circumvent disasters and reroute asteroids off the course of destruction.

To put everything into perspective, though Earth is not currently facing any threats of Armageddon, in the future, the ability to redirect a moving object in space could mitigate, if not eliminate, threats of collision that could be more dangerous than the smaller-sized asteroids that crash into Earth once or twice per century, which merely leave a small crater in the Earth as opposed to a dent in the world’s population. This mission will likely be repeated several times in the near future to fully test the limits of how far humanity can shift a celestial object’s orbit, and improve the technology for even greater, more efficient results.