After traveling in the vacuum of space for over 10 months, the Dart mission has set its eye on the target, a binary asteroid system where it meets a fiery end. The spacecraft will crash on a moonlet of the binary system Didymos to test a unique method to save Earth if a deadly asteroid comes hurtling towards us.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is the world’s first mission to test technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards. The spacecraft will crash into the Didymos binary asteroid system at a speed of 24,000 kilometers per hour to slightly deflect and change its orbit.
A suit of telescopes, both ground, and space-based, will be tracking the event. The James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Telescope will have their lenses trained on the collision set to happen in deep space. The autonomous spacecraft will collide to give Earth its tools against future hazards.
WHEN WILL DART COLLIDE WITH DIMORPHOS ASTEROID?
The DART mission will collide with the asteroid on Monday at 7:14 pm EDT. For those of us living in India, the collision will happen in the wee hours of Tuesday at 4:44 am IST.
HOW TO WATCH DART COLLIDE WITH DIMORPHOS ASTEROID?
We will bring you live coverage of the event as it happens. The Armageddon-inspired event will be live-streamed at indiatoday.in for you to watch.
If successful, the method will become a key element of the planetary defense effort against Near Earth Objects, which includes findings, tracking, and then hitting them to change their course of movement.