Brandon is the space/physics editor at Live Science. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Reader's Digest, CBS.com, the Richard Dawkins Foundation website and other outlets. He holds a bachelor's degree in creative writing from the University of Arizona, with minors in journalism and media arts.
It's a classic science fiction scenario: An enormous asteroid is discovered hurtling toward Earth that is sure to trigger a cataclysmic extinction upon impact. Intrepid scientists have only a year to launch a preemptive strike against the space rock — to knock it off course or blow it to bits — with the fate of humankind at stake. Can they stop it?
For this reason, space agencies take the doomsday scenario"very seriously," Brent Barbee, an aerospace engineer at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center and a professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Maryland, told Live Science.
Dimorphos posed no threat to Earth but made a prime target due to its size and orbit around a larger companion asteroid, Didymos. Following the successful impact on Sept. 26, Dimorphos' orbit around Didymos slowed by a whopping 33 minutes — a result of both the impact and the massive plume of dust ejected from the asteroid's surface. The mission — humanity's first and so far only attempt to alter the course of an asteroid — was a smashing success.
"A single appropriately sized nuclear explosive device was, in our analysis, found to be capable of deflecting even the 1.5 kilometer size asteroid," he added. This method could be equally effective at disrupting smaller "city killer" asteroids, too — those measuring at least 165 feet in diameter, which is generally considered the minimum size for an asteroid to reach Earth's surface, Barbee said.
Asteroid Science Fiction Extinction Scientists Preemptive Strike Space Rock Humankind
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