(Reuters) – A probe launched last November by NASA to try to divert an asteroid from its trajectory is expected to reach its target overnight from Monday to Tuesday.
The Dart spaceship (Double Asteroid Redirection Test, double asteroid deviation test) has been traveling for 10 months to Dimorphos, a small asteroid 160 meters in diameter, satellite of an asteroid 800 m in diameter, Didymos, located at 11 million km from Earth.
NASA will test, by sending Dart (dart in English) to hit Dimorphos at a speed of 24,000 km / hour, the ability of the probe to alter the trajectory of the asteroid thanks to kinetic energy, a device supposed to protect the Earth by case of similar risk.
This unprecedented mission is intended to test a planetary defense system and is the first attempt to modify the trajectory of an asteroid or any other celestial body.
The result of the mission will not be known until October, when the data collected by telescopes, on earth and in space, will have been analyzed.
The asteroid targeted by the mission poses no threat to the planet, unlike its much larger ancestor Chicxulub, which struck Earth 66 million years ago and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.
(Report Steve Gorman; French version Camille Raynaud, edited by Tangi Salaün)
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