EXCLUSIVE to SDN:
Twitter: @edd1819, Instagram: @bluestar0910, Facebook: SDN — Science, Digital & Current Affairs
By EDD K. USMAN
Short link: https://wp.me/paaccn-axO
BELFAST, Northern Ireland/MANILA — Planetary defense to protect and save Earthlings from a devastating asteroid?
How about a billiards game in space?
You might think it’s either a bright or a crazy idea ahead of its time, or something straight out of George Lucas’s science fiction screenplay. It’s not. It’s non-fiction and is from scientists’ bright minds.
The whole idea, which SDN — Science and Digital News got wind of from Queen’s University Belfast, is to target a particular asteroid and attempt to move or deflect it to forcefully change its path, its orbit. Objective: to prevent asteroids from hitting Earth.
_________
“Yes, I have seen several science fiction movies about asteroids hitting the Earth! But this is reality, and we are dealing with a real threat that may be low probability, but we know it will happen one day.”
_________
— Prof. Alan Fitzsimmons
You watched “Sudden Impact”? The goal is the same, stop an asteroid from obliterating parts of Earth and save thousands of people and other living creatures on Ground Zero. Even millions of people if an asteroid is big enough.
Let’s hear it from Professor Alan Fitzsimmons from the Astrophysics Research Center at Queen’s. After all he “is playing a role in two space missions that will measure how hard it is to deflect an asteroid,” said Queen’s email to SDN.
“Yes, I have seen several science fiction movies about asteroids hitting the Earth! But this is reality, and we are dealing with a real threat that may be low probability, but we know it will happen one day,” the astrophysicist tells SDN in an exclusive interview through email.
The planetary project, actually two space initiatives, is under DART, or the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, a space mission under the United States National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA), which is working on it with many partners. DART is described as “the first planetary defense test mission.”
An incredibly important mission
Asked about the mission’s importance to Earth and humanity, the good professor has no doubts about it, while emphasizing it has never been done before. In saying this, he also cited scientists’ ability to locate and track down asteroids as they hurtle in space to God knows where.
No telling DART’s outcome
“It is incredibly important. Up to now, scientists have demonstrated they can find asteroids coming near the Earth, track them accurately, and measure their properties. But we have never tried to move an asteroid before, and that is the missing piece of the jigsaw. By doing this, scientists can place their calculations about deflecting asteroids on a much more solid platform, and have some confidence in our ability to protect us from future asteroid impacts,” the Queen’s scientist point outs.
“Like any science experiment, we have to be prepared for an outcome that does not agree with our expectations. If DART does not move the asteroid as much as we hope, or even if it moves it much more than we expect, the next step will be to understand why, using the information from DART and Hera.”
Professor Fitzsimmons explained it further, in ways like he was talking to elementary pupils.
“To stop an asteroid impact, the easiest way is to change its orbit around the Sun, so in the future its new path misses the Earth. DART will do this by hitting a small asteroid very fast at over 6 km/s, moving it onto a slightly different path like a game of cosmic billiards. The DART team proposers were very clever in picking Dimorphos as the target, as it is a moon of a larger asteroid Didymos.
“So they will change the orbit of the moon around the main asteroid by a small amount, and we can measure this change using telescopes on Earth. Knowing how much the path of Dimorphos was changed, we can apply this knowledge to change the orbit of an asteroid around the Sun, if our calculations show it will hit us in future years.”
Sounds simple, is it?
Queen’s media office spoke about using technology for the attempt, saying: “An asteroid strike on Earth could be prevented by new technology launching into space this year, involving a Queen’s University Belfast scientist.” That’s Professor Fitzsimmons.
Queen’s continued in its message to SDN that sometime in the later part of 2021 NASA’s “DART mission will launch to intercept the Didymos asteroid system. When an asteroid the size of Dimorphos strikes the Earth, it can easily destroy any cities or towns within tens of kilometers.”
How’s that for scary
The DART mission’s target isn’t asteroid Didymos itself, but its smaller moon called Dimorphos. DART will collide with Dimorphos at over six kilometers/second in September next year, destroying the spacecraft, but slightly moving the asteroid moon.
Professor Fitzsimmons, who is a member of the DART investigation team, comments:
“The team at NASA and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory have designed a fantastic mission that should change the orbit of Dimorphos.
“Dimorphos is about 160 miles across and is similar to those asteroids mostly likely to cause us concern in the next 100 years. By deflecting it in its path around Didymos, DART will show us it is possible to move a small asteroid that could hit us in years to come.”
That’s the first mission
From Queen’s:
Finding out exactly what happened to Dimorphos is the task of the second spacecraft, the European Space Agency (ESA) Hera Mission. Professor Fitzsimmons is a member of the Science Management Board for the ESA spacecraft.
Hera will launch from Earth in 2024 and arrive at Dimorphos in 2026, staying there for about a year. The spacecraft will precisely measure how massive Dimorphos is and how the small asteroid responded to being hit by DART.
By performing this experiment, scientists will be able to calculate more accurately what needs to be done if a small asteroid is discovered on an impact trajectory with the Earth.
According to Professor Fitzsimmons, DART and Hera will be humanity’s first practice in planetary defense. Both main spacecraft will carry smaller cubesat spacecraft, to help further understand how to move asteroids.
He explains:
“We had our first meetings at ESA in 2004 to start designing a mission that would help us protect us from asteroid impacts. Now after (17 years) we have a truly international project working on a truly global problem.”
In relation with this, Professor Fitzsimmons will be explaining all about asteroids and comets in a talk to mark World Asteroid Day on Wednesday, June 30, at 5 p.m. with the Geological Society of London (GSOL). Attendance is free and is open to the public. To register, please visit https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/YOS-Asteroids-and-Comets
World Asteroid Day is held on June 30 every year in recognition of the last major asteroid strike on Earth, on that date in 1908.
Asteroid Day is credited and co-founded by three personalities, such as astrophysicist Dr. Brian May, legendary guitarist of rock group Queen; Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart; filmmaker Grig Richter; and B612 Foundation President Danica Remy.
The quartet founded Asteroid Day “to educate the public about the importance of asteroids – their role in the formation of our solar system, their impact in space resources and the importance of defending our planet from future impacts. Asteroid Day is observed annually on 30 June to mark the date of Earth’s largest asteroid impact in recorded history, the Siberia Tunguska event.”
DART‘s website has this to say on the test mission
It marks the “first-ever space mission to demonstrate asteroid deflection by kinetic impactor on a binary asteroid target: the moon of Didymos, called Dimorphos. Didymos is Greek for ‘twin’, and Dimorphos means ‘having two forms’ in recognition of humanity changing the form of the body via the DART mission.” DART is part of NASA’s larger strategy to defend Planet Earth from asteroid impacts.
What was the professor’s reaction upon learning he will be with Earth’s defenders
“It was very nice to be welcomed onto the DART investigation team, and I was even more excited when we learned Hera would be joining the effort to perform this experiment. This is a very exciting project that I have been waiting almost 20 years to see happen.”
SDN also asked him about the cost of the planetary defense mission test, maybe he has an idea.
“I am afraid I do not know, but I expect it is about the same as a Hollywood disaster movie! Professor Fitzsimmons says he cleverly navigated the question.
According to AsteroidDay.org over a million asteroids are already known orbiting the Sun. On the other hand, millions more have yet to be discovered by scientists. With an enormous number of speeding space objects, consider the importance of DART and NASA’s overall Planetary Defense Program that involves the international community.
For the Planetary Defense Mission NASA selected four new scientists for the Investigation Team of the DART, they are Dr. Bonnu=ie Buratti (Jet Propulsion Laboratory); Dr. Ludmilla Kolokolova (University of Maryland); Dr. Jay MacMahon (University of Colorado, Boulder); and Dr. Stephen Schwartz (University of Arizona).
For the benefit of Planet Earth and its inhabitants, let us hope DART and the women and men behind it will succeed. (/)
=========
Featured image is Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.