In July of this year, an asteroid with the same size of a Boeing 747 made up of nickel and iron called Asteroid 2019 NN3 passed by the Earth. NASA labelled the asteroid as a Near-Earth-Objects (NEO). Although it missed hitting the Earth this time, people must know that the earth may not always be lucky.
Asteroids have always been known for the threat that they post on the planet and its safety. In 2013, a space rock that is less than a third of the size of the Earth flew over Chelyabinsk, which practically released a half megaton amount of energy that was spread over the city.
If an Asteroid NN3 or maybe even bigger flew directly on Earth, there is no team on Earth that will ever be ready for the disaster that is to happen. At the moment, scientists and astronauts are working together to come up with a possible solution to a potential situation. A group of researchers are currently looking at the possibility of successfully deflecting an asteroid.
Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) is a joint project of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA). They will attempt to deflect an asteroid from hitting Earth with a spacecraft that is the size of a large refrigerator. Such spacecraft is especially designed to prevent the asteroid from colliding with Earth.
The scientists from the Applied Physics Laboratory (PAL) of John Hopkins are the people behind DART or the Double Asteroid Redirection Test. The DART uses a "kinetic impactor technique" to hopefully knock the asteroid away from where it's supposed to be to avoid it from colliding with Earth. The goal of this impactor technique is to shift the orbit of the asteroid.
Didymos is currently the target of DART. It is interestingly a twin asteroid system with two orbiting asteroids. Didymos A is 780m in diameter while Didymos B is 160m of all space rock. The plan for NASA to attempt to crash didymos B with the DART. While this is happening, ESA will be using the LICIACUBE (Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging Asteroid) will be recording everything in a video. ESA's Hera will reach Didymos by 2027 to look into the crash site.
Such collision would cause quite an impact, but no sound will be heard of from space. However, astronauts based on Earth may be able to see the hit. Although there is no immediate threat from the Didymos, these twin asteroids are considered near-Earth object (NEO), therefore, they can be potential hazardous in the future.
Whether this asteroid project is a success or not, people are about to find out.
