On September 26, after some ten months on the road, the DART mission finally reached its target. The intention is that the NASA spacecraft will hit the asteroid Didymos that day in an attempt to change its orbit. Nothing like this has ever been attempted before.
Didymos (Greek for twins) consists of two parts: Didymos A has a diameter of 780 meters. A smaller celestial body or moon revolves around Didymos A: Dimorphos. This celestial body has a diameter of 160 meters and is the exact target that the DART mission is aiming for. With a speed of 6 kilometers per second, DART will tap the celestial body Dimorphos after which it should change its orbit around Didymos.
The countdown can begin, as in just a few weeks, on September 26, the DART spacecraft will arrive at asteroid Didymos. The spacecraft will ram the moon of this binary system in an attempt to change its orbit. It promises to be an exciting mission that will hopefully give us more insight into how we can protect the Earth from any future nearers. And to be fully informed about this mission, we summarize the most important facts for you in the video below.
Our science expert Martijn Peters explains what we should envision for the DART mission