Experts discuss early results of the NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission and its intentional collision with its target asteroid, Dimorphos.
On Monday, Sept. 26, DART successfully impacted its asteroid target in the world's first planetary defense technology demonstration. As a part of NASA's overall planetary defense strategy, DART's impact with the asteroid Dimorphos will help to determine whether asteroid deflection using a kinetic impactor spacecraft is a viable mitigation technique for protecting the planet from an Earth-bound asteroid or comet, if one were discovered. Johns Hopkins APL manages the DART mission for NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office as a project of the agency's Planetary Missions Program Office. Neither DART's target asteroid, Dimorphos, nor its larger asteroid parent, Didymos, poses a hazard to Earth.
Participants include:
• NASA Administrator Bill Nelson
• Italian Space Agency President Giorgio Saccoccia
DART update panel:
• Lori Glaze, director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington
• Tom Statler, DART program scientist at NASA Headquarters
• Nancy Chabot, DART coordination lead at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland
More on DART: https://nasa.gov/dart
Credit: NASA
