Your Google search could reveal something smashing! Search for “NASA DART” on @Google to see a demonstration of browser, uh, planetary defense. pic.twitter.com/ZuxtlgaLJ1
— NASA (@NASA) September 27, 2022
Once you search for “NASA DART,” your Google Search results page will show a representation of the DART spacecraft flying across the page until it disappears in an animated crash that will leave the page askew.
The purpose of the DART mission is to test a planetary defence technique called the “kinetic impactor” method where a high-speed spacecraft will make a controlled collision with an asteroid that poses a threat to Earth. This is intended to give the asteroid a small nudge that will ever so slightly shift its trajectory.
The asteroid Dimorphos does not present a threat to the Earth but scientists will use data from the crash to ascertain whether the kinetic impactor method is viable in such a scenario. In the event of an asteroid that actually poses a threat to our planet, a kinetic impact will only need to delay or hasten the asteroid’s trajectory by about 7 minutes in order to save the Earth. This is because the Earth takes about 7 minutes to travel a distance equal to its diameter. If an asteroid on course to crash into the earth were delayed or hastened by seven minutes, it will miss the Earth when the two celestial bodies’ trajectories intersect.
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