London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 02, 2025

Nasa to crash $330m spacecraft into asteroid to see if impact can alter course

Nasa to crash $330m spacecraft into asteroid to see if impact can alter course

Space agency to cause collision with Dimorphos to avert sci-fi fears of catastrophic impact with Earth

In a few weeks, Nasa controllers will deliberately crash their $330m Dart robot spacecraft into an asteroid. The half-tonne probe will be travelling at more than four miles a second when it strikes its target, Dimorphos, and will be destroyed.

The aim of this kamikaze science mission is straightforward: space engineers want to learn how to deflect asteroids in case one is ever discovered on a collision course with Earth. Observations of Dart’s impact on Dimorphos’s orbit will provide crucial data about how well spacecraft can protect Earth from asteroid armageddon, they say.

“We know asteroids have hit us in the past,” said Professor Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queen’s University Belfast. “These impacts are a natural process and they are going to happen in the future. We would like to stop the worst of them.

“The problem is that we have never tested the technology which will be needed to do that. That is the purpose of Dart,” said Fitzsimmons, a member of the science team for the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart) mission. Launched last November, the probe is scheduled to strike its target in the early hours of 27 September, BST. By carefully studying the asteroid’s path after the collision, scientists believe they will better understand how similar collisions could be used to deflect Earth-bound asteroids and comets.

“Dart’s target has been carefully chosen,” said Jay Tate, director of the National Near Earth Objects Information Centre in Knighton, Powys. “Dimorphos actually orbits another, bigger asteroid called Didymos, and the extent of the deflection caused by the crash will be easier to detect as astronomers have been carefully observing its path around the bigger asteroid.”

Impacts by asteroids and comets have had big effects on life on Earth in the past. The best known collision occurred 66 million years ago when a 10 km wide asteroid struck Chicxulub in the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The collision created a blast that had the energy of several billion atomic bombs and led to the destruction of 75% of all plant and animals species, including all land-based dinosaurs.

Since then, films such as Don’t Look Up, Armageddon and Deep Impact have depicted similar devastation being triggered by asteroid or comet crashes in modern times. However, astronomers believe it is unlikely we will experience such catastrophic impacts in real life in the near future.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence in Don’t Look Up, a film about two astronomers who try to warn about a comet heading for Earth.


“We know where the big asteroids are because we can see them with our current generation of telescopes, and we know none of the detected asteroids are coming anywhere near our planet for the next couple of hundred years or so. So we can rest easy in our beds about those ones,” added Fitzsimmons.

“However, many smaller ones have yet to be detected, and they are still big enough to destroy entire cities and devastate large areas. We are mapping these smaller objects with increasing accuracy but we will have to be prepared to act if we find one that is on course for Earth. Dart is the first step in ensuring we havethe right technology to deal with the threat.”

Nasa’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or Dart mission, will crash a spacecraft into an asteroid and measure deflections in its orbit
Source and Image: Nasa


It is a point backed by Nasa’s planetary defence officer, Lindley Johnson, who stressed the importance of developing asteroid deflection technology as soon as possible. “We don’t want to be in a situation where an asteroid is headed toward Earth and then have to be testing this kind of capability.”

An example of the danger posed by small asteroids and comets is provided by the rocky object that penetrated Earth’s atmosphere near the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on 15 February 2013. Thought to have been 20 metres in diameter, it exploded in the atmosphere, triggering a 400 kiloton blast that injured more than 1,500 people.

“Had that object entered the atmosphere a mere 20km further north than it did, it would have done much greater damage to the city,” said Tate. “We have been very lucky not to have taken substantial casualties from these things within living memory. We have to be aware that they will happen one day, and be ready to do something about them.”

Dart’s target, Dimorphos, is 160 metres in diameter and orbits its parent asteroid every 12 hours. Ten days before impact, the spacecraft will release a purse-sized Italian-built probe, called LiciaCub, which is fitted with two cameras that have been given the Star Wars-inspired names of Luke and Leia. Images of Dart’s asteroid impact will be recorded by Luke and Leia and beamed back to ground controllers.

Earth-based telescopes will then study the asteroid and pinpoint how its orbit has been changed. “That way, we will get an idea how easy it is going to be to deflect incoming asteroids or comets,” said Tate.

A tidal wave hits New York in director Mimi Leder’s 1998 film Deep Impact, also involving a deadly comet.


In addition, the European Space Agency is set to send a robot spacecraft, Hera, in 2024 to Dimorphos to study the crater left by Dart and analyse its collision with the asteroid.

“Hitting Dimorphos is not going to be easy,” said Fitzsimmons. “It is only 160 metres in diameter and the spacecraft will be travelling at four miles a second. Hitting the asteroid dead centre – where the crash will have most effect – will push Dart’s autonomous navigation devices to their limit.

“Nasa engineers and scientists have done a tremendous job and are confident this should absolutely work. But you never really know until you have done it,” Fitzsimmons said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×