NASA to conduct full-scale test to divert asteroid

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Asteroids pose a sneaky danger. Depending on their size and speed, the damage can be considerable. Also, the NASA will conduct a life-size experiment to try to deviate an asteroid.

The impact of an asteroid on our planet could destroy the vast majority of life forms. Many believe that such an impact would have been the cause of the disappearance of the dinosaurs. This danger, which is very low in probability but can be extremely destructive and to put an end to our civilization, is taken seriously by the NASA, which will try to deviate the trajectory of an asteroid in order to test its ability to protect us from a Cataclysm.

The Nasa will launch an impactor to deflect an asteroid

NASA engineers have evaluated 3 methods considered to protect themselves from a celestial body us running straight on at a dizzying speed. The first method envisaged would be to explode a nearby nuclear bomb. This technique was rejected because it presents risks and could transform the asteroid into thousands of fragments. The second method of sending artificial satellites to create a gravitational force was also rejected because it was too long to obtain results.

The third method consists in launching a 300 Kg impactor which would strike the asteroid and thus deviate its trajectory. This is the solution chosen by the engineers of NASA. Named DART, the mission in charge of deviating an asteroid should allow a full-scale test from the year 2022 and would be monitored closely by a European probe.

The probability of impact of an asteroid is very low

The probability that an asteroid, of sufficient size to create a cataclysm, falls to earth is extremely weak.The last one goes back to the days of the dinosaurs. The Cheliabinsk incident in Russia, however, has rekindled the specter of such a scenario. Even though we know 90% of the celestial bodies more than one kilometer in diameter and none of them is dangerous for centuries to come, those of a smaller size are dangerous.Asteroids with a size of 140 meters and 1 km in diameter have considerable destructive potential and only a quarter of them are known. It is therefore towards Didymoon, a heavenly object of 170 meters, that Nasa has set its sights to test its ability to deviate its trajectory in 2022.