Crashing the 1,340-pound DART probe into the small moonlet orbiting the asteroid Didymos should redirect its trajectory – and could be a model for how to save Earth in the future.
By tracking a meteorite found in Morocco back to its origin in an asteroid crater on Mars millions of years ago, scientists can learn more about how the planets formed.
When the meteor exploded into pieces above New Zealand, it produced a shock wave strong enough to be picked up by earthquake seismometers. But any fragments have likely dropped into the ocean.
Current trends suggest that powerful nations are defining the rules of resource use in space and satellite access in ways that will make it hard for developing nations to ever catch up.
NASA has only mapped 40% of the potentially dangerous asteroids that could crash into Earth. New projects will boost that number, and upcoming missions will test tech that could prevent collisions.
The Lucy mission could revolutionise our knowledge of the Solar System’s history, while the DART mission could help redirect hazardous asteroids in the future.