Stop the impact of an asteroid by attacking it. You won’t see Bruce Willis, they won’t use a giant drill, but it’s an awesome moment. The dart mission will have its star moment in a few minutes, around 8:15 p.m. Chilean time the spaceship bearing the same name is scheduled to collide like a kamikaze probe against Dimorphos rock.
What is Dimorphos?
We remember that to carry out this mission. the POT has chosen a binary asteroid system that, at the time of impact, will be about 11 million kilometers from Earth.
It is formed by Didymos -780 meters in diameter-, and Dimorphos -160 meters, a size similar to that of the great pyramid of Giza in Egypt-, which orbits the primary object.
And why is this mission being done?
It’s a test, to see if humanity is capable of doing Bruce Willis’s feat in Armageddon: destroying an asteroid to prevent it from hitting the planet. Clearly there is no risk here, it is on a much smaller scale, but it is a first step.