this morning. A typical
slowdown. You’re at 30 minutes
from the Grand Parkway into
downtown. >> Thank you so much, Anne V
>> Thank you so much, Anne V
now today, scientists at NASA
are conducting the ultimate
science experiment. The double asteroid redirection test or
asteroid redirection test or
DART will intentionally crashed
into an asteroid. Here to tell
us more about this mission is
Nancy Chabot. My thing that
right? >> You are. You’ve got perfect
>> You are. You’ve got perfect
waiting talking about how she
is with. She is the dark
ordination lead. Welcome to our
show, Nancy. So.
>> I want to start off with this. If there is an asteroid
this. If there is an asteroid
headed toward the Earth, can
we make it miss us?
>> Well, that’s why we’re doing
this said DART mission and doing this first test of
doing this first test of
planetary deflection asteroid
deflection in space today.
This is a really important
because we do think we have the
technological from the from what’s been developed today.
what’s been developed today.
But we haven’t done a test like
this before in space ever.
And it was it was a test.
We’re going to target a small asteroid that’s never been seen
asteroid that’s never been seen
before at high speed when it
7 million miles away. But this
will get us to that future
where we can potentially
prevent this. So how are we
This experiment is a success
>> well, the first thing we’re
going to get is these images
that are streaming back to
Earth, that one per second and
they’re going to make their way
to the Mission Operations
center here at Johns Hopkins
Applied Physics Lab where I am,
and then they’re going to be shown live on the NASA
shown live on the NASA
broadcast and they’re going to
definitively tell the final
moments of the DART spacecraft
has that asteroid service.
It’s closer and closer as the spacecraft slams into it at
spacecraft slams into it at
14,000 miles per hour.
Everybody can watch live
together the world on NASA’s
broadcast tonight. It’s just
incredible. The time we live in
to be able to be able to watch all of us and even lives.
all of us and even lives.
So I want you to help me with
perspective. Now.
>> The satellite is the size of
a vending machine. As you
mentioned, it’s traveling
17,000 miles per hour, 4 miles per second. Now, the asteroid,
per second. Now, the asteroid,
if I understand this right is
the size of a large pyramid
so is this size relationship
exactly what we’re looking for
in this experiment is this would this be the size of an
would this be the size of an
asteroid that would be headed
toward Earth if that ever
occurs?
>> Yeah, it’s important to stay
right now that this asteroid,
this is just a test. This asteroid is not a threat to
asteroid is not a threat to
the air. It’s not a DART has
won’t make it a threat to the
air actually of the astors that
we found. None are set to the
years for the simple feature we actually have about all the
we actually have about all the
asteroids. And so something the
size of the asteroid that dart
is running into. Like you said,
the size of a great spirit and
our did your favorite sports
stadium actually is about that size. This is one that we’re
size. This is one that we’re
concerned about. Is it 50
years? It could cause damage
that went for 10’s of hundreds
of miles of this was over a
city or small state or country.
You can see this would be catastrophic and devastating.
catastrophic and devastating.
So we want to take steps to
potentially prevent that.
No scratching such a smaller states got into this larger
states got into this larger
asteroids. This is all about
asteroid deflection, not
destruction. This is not the
Hollywood blockbusters. We blow
it into a bunch of pieces.
This is what you would want to
do. Just a tiny nudge to this asteroid and it doesn’t do much
asteroid and it doesn’t do much
to the asteroid. But you do
this years in advance 5, 10,
15, 20 years in advance.
And then that adds up to a big
change in this position that
I’m in the afternoon. You’re going to be on a collision
going to be on a collision
course anymore.
>> That I also think was really
incredible about this mission
is there’s an Italian satellite
that’s traveling along with dark 34 miles away. What is
dark 34 miles away. What is
that satellite? Do it?
>> So, yeah, we’re really Have
we check you contributed by
the Italian space agency that
stands for the light. Italian
que set of imaging of
asteroids. It was deployed from the DART spacecraft about 2
the DART spacecraft about 2
weeks ago and it’s been
operating on its own in space.
This is the first time for it.
Only has 2 cameras and it’s
going to take some direct images of darts collision and
images of darts collision and
the aftermath of the rocky
material that’s thrown out from
this energetic solution.
It’s going to store this data
on board so we will get them
tonight. But we’ll look forward
to getting that in the days and weeks to come. And then we’re
weeks to come. And then we’re
actually going to use
telescopes here on leaders to
figure out just how much we
moved. This asteroid telescopes
on all 7 continents and some in space are all tuning in to
in space are all tuning in to
see what we can learn from this
first planetary defense test.
You’re mentioning all the
different asteroids that NASA’s
Crowley watching 9 headed toward Earth. But why was this
toward Earth. But why was this
particular one chosen? Yeah, it
really is the ideal asteroid
target to do this. First
planetary defense test. And
that’s because like the name of
the mission says it’s a double asteroid system. There’s 2
asteroid system. There’s 2
asteroids. They’re so there’s a
larger asteroid named Didymos
in the smaller one is named him
are false and the DART
spacecraft will crash into them
or foes. And we’re going to measure asteroid deflection by
measure asteroid deflection by
just changing how the smaller
asteroid goes around. The
larger
asteroid slightly. This is a
much easier telescopes on the
air. And it’s also really safe way to do this first test
way to do this first test
because you’re just changing
one. Astra goes around a much
larger one. It doesn’t change
of the asteroid as a pair goes
around the sun and the
measurable way. So there’s a
asteroid is in the right place at the right time in order to
at the right time in order to
be taking this first test for
planetary defense.
>> Nancy, we really appreciate
you spending some time with us explaining this. And of course,
explaining this. And of course,