Uploaded September 2022 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
What if an astroid was headed toward earth, what would we do?
This video is ACTUAL live stream footage from a NASA spacecraft that flew into an astroid last night. NASA has been working on a planetary defense system and last night, they conducted their first test of an astroid redirect called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test).
Here’s the thing: this was only a test, just to see if an idea like this would even work. Let’s explain:
On September 26, 2022, DART intentionally smashed into an astroid at 4 miles a second. DART's target was the binary asteroid system Didymos, which means "twin" in Greek (and explains the word "double" in the mission's name). The system is composed of two asteroids: the larger asteroid Didymos (diameter: 0.48 miles), and the smaller moonlet asteroid, Dimorphos (diameter: 525 feet), which orbits the larger asteroid. If it worked, the impact from the DART spacecraft will shorten the time it takes the small asteroid moonlet to orbit Didymos by several minutes, confirming that it might be possible to redirect an astroid in the future.
See, the way that orbital mechanics work, is that even a small change in direction or speed results in a MASSIVE change in the orbit’s shape and potential collisions. So rather than foolishly try to blow up an astroid (looking at you, Deep Impact/Armageddon), we could just shift its orbit a little bit.
The good news is that DART was just a test - Didymos posses no threat to Earth - and if this test worked from the relatively tiny DART spacecraft, something much larger might be used against an actual incoming astroid while it’s still millions of miles away from Earth. The Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Telescope, and dozens of Earth bound telescope are all trained on Didymos to see if DART had the intended effect. Either way, very cool and sci-fi like live stream!
What if an astroid was headed toward earth, what would we do?
This video is ACTUAL live stream footage from a NASA spacecraft that flew into an astroid last night. NASA has been working on a planetary defense system and last night, they conducted their first test of an astroid redirect called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test).
Here’s the thing: this was only a test, just to see if an idea like this would even work. Let’s explain:
On September 26, 2022, DART intentionally smashed into an astroid at 4 miles a second. DART's target was the binary asteroid system Didymos, which means "twin" in Greek (and explains the word "double" in the mission's name). The system is composed of two asteroids: the larger asteroid Didymos (diameter: 0.48 miles), and the smaller moonlet asteroid, Dimorphos (diameter: 525 feet), which orbits the larger asteroid. If it worked, the impact from the DART spacecraft will shorten the time it takes the small asteroid moonlet to orbit Didymos by several minutes, confirming that it might be possible to redirect an astroid in the future.
See, the way that orbital mechanics work, is that even a small change in direction or speed results in a MASSIVE change in the orbit’s shape and potential collisions. So rather than foolishly try to blow up an astroid (looking at you, Deep Impact/Armageddon), we could just shift its orbit a little bit.
The good news is that DART was just a test - Didymos posses no threat to Earth - and if this test worked from the relatively tiny DART spacecraft, something much larger might be used against an actual incoming astroid while it’s still millions of miles away from Earth. The Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Telescope, and dozens of Earth bound telescope are all trained on Didymos to see if DART had the intended effect. Either way, very cool and sci-fi like live stream!
