NOVEMBER DOOM? Massive asteroid danger to Earth: NASA to strike Didymos asteroid with a rocket

Will we be able to see it on a telescope,thanks.

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Never
A
Straight
Answer

Since some of you won't shut up about this, let's do the math. Then you both owe me an apology. We know the size of Didymos is 780 meters in diameter. Using the formula for the volume of a sphere we can approximate its volume as about 248,474,846 m^3. We can calculate its mass using the orbit of its moon, Dimorphos. For a given orbital period and distance, m = ((2*pi)^2 * distance^3)/(period^2*G). With period = 42837 seconds and distance = 1,180 m we get a mass of about 5.29632*10^11 kg. That means an overall density of about 2,132 kg/m^3 which is pretty typical for an asteroid. The moon is much smaller, only about 170 +/- 30 meters based on radar observations, so let's take the lower value of 140 m to be generous to the claim that DART can move this thing out of Didymos orbit and towards earth. Using our previously established density of about 2132 kg/m^3 we find a mass of Dimorphos of about 3.06 * 10^9 kilograms which is a little less than the official value because we've assumed the minimum size. We know the DART impactor will be 500 kg and traveling at about 6.6 km/s, so we can be very generous and assume an entirely elastic collision with no dissipation where the impactor transfers its entire kinetic energy into the moon as kinetic energy (which won't happen, but again we're trying to see the MAXIMUM change in velocity this impactor could impart). We can use the formula for an elastic collision and find out how much the moon will change in velocity from its initial velocity.

(500kg*6600m/s)/3.06316175 * 10^9 kilograms = 0.001 m/s

That's a tenth of a cm/s. That's barely anything at all. This is why they're doing this to a moon of a larger asteroid; the velocity of its orbit around its parent is small, so even a small change will be detectable. But how fast is it orbiting? Well for an average distance of about 1.18 km in a nearly circular orbit we get an orbital circumference of about 3.7 km and at an orbital period of 42,837 seconds, we find an orbital velocity of about 0.086 m/s. So a change of 0.001 m/s would be a change of about 1% to its orbital velocity around its parent asteroid. Is that even enough to escape from Didymos if applied in the right way to accelerate the moon? Well, do the math. Escape velocity = sqrt((2*G*M)/r). M is the mass of Didymos (5.29632*10^11 kg), r is the radius of Dimorphos' orbit (1.18 km) so plugging that in along with the gravitational constant gives an escape velocity of about 0.2448 m/s. 0.001 + 0.086 = 0.0861 which is way, way less than 0.2448 m/s. So no, even assuming the most generous things about the size and mass of the moon, even assuming a perfectly elastic collision with no losses to heat which brings the impactor to a dead stop and transfers all the kinetic energy to the moon, it still would not be nearly enough to push the moon out of Didymos orbit, let alone to earth.

Neutralizing
Anti
Science
Assholes

The article is stupid. The asteroid is no threat to hit Earth and the impact lacks the force required to knock the moon out of didymos orbit. It can spin it up all it likes, it's not leaving didymos. Even under ideal conditions the impact will be orders of magnitude too small to eject it from didymos orbit.

It will be televised. Holy crap balls!

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NASA will launch a mission this November to strike an asteroid that may pose a threat to Earth. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission will be launched in order to prevent a hazardous asteroid from striking Earth. The mission is set to launch at 10:20pm PST, November 23 (10:50am IST on the following day). DART will be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, US. The launch will be covered live and will be aired on NASA TV, the NASA app and its website. The space agency has also called for media coverage of the event.

Neutralizing
Anti
Science
Assholes

The article is stupid. The asteroid is no threat to hit Earth and the impact lacks the force required to knock the moon out of didymos orbit. It can spin it up all it likes, it's not leaving didymos. Even under ideal conditions the impact will be orders of magnitude too small to eject it from didymos orbit.

#4 only not an invasion, it will start over Taiwan.

That would be a nice distraction.


5*

It will be televised. Holy crap balls!

[link to gadgets.ndtv.com (secure)]

NASA will launch a mission this November to strike an asteroid that may pose a threat to Earth. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission will be launched in order to prevent a hazardous asteroid from striking Earth. The mission is set to launch at 10:20pm PST, November 23 (10:50am IST on the following day). DART will be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, US. The launch will be covered live and will be aired on NASA TV, the NASA app and its website. The space agency has also called for media coverage of the event.

Just realized, the kids will be off school for Thanksgiving break when they do this.

And it will be during prime time TV.

Interesting timing

In your opinion, why then are they going through the trouble and expense to do this? And making sure there is widespread media coverage? Sincere question, thanks.

War of the Worlds, some background for you youngsters

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Is this the BIG ONE? The reason for all the insanity going on?

There are MANY recent news articles about this- put "didymos " into a search engine and see for yourself. This is just one of many :


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In November, NASA will undertake a major risk-averting mission in an attempt to tackle an asteroid that may pose an enormous collision threat to Earth. The mission is called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) and its target is hazardous near-earth binary asteroid Didymos.

A binary asteroid means that Didymos consists of two bodies, the primary one being 780 meters in length whereas the secondary body (called moonlet) spanning 160 meters in size. The secondary body falls in the range of space bodies that have the most chances of posing a threat of collision with Earth.