At 7:14 am today, when many people just woke up from their sleep, a very sci-fi thing happened in deep space about 11 million kilometers away from the earth. NASA's DART asteroid test interceptor accurately hit the smaller one in a near-Earth dual asteroid system, the "Dimoffus", and successfully changed its orbit. This marks that humans face the threat of asteroids and no longer sit and wait for death like dinosaurs. For the first time, humans have the ability to truly change their destiny on the scale of the universe. This is "man conquers nature."
DART approaches the picture sent back by the "Dimoffus"
impact the last frame of the picture sent back by the pre-impact
This collision is part of the United States' "double asteroid redirection test". In fact, many people still remember that on November 24 last year, the moment when the "Falcon" 9 reused rocket of SpaceX company took off with DART. Compared with the DART as big as a refrigerator, the huge rocket fairing is really empty, as if " Malaysian pulling a car". For Musk, who has always been stingy, it is really an unprecedented thing.
Rocket fairing has such a large remaining space, which is rare for Musk to see
DART splits from the upper stage
After more than 10 months of flight, DART successfully arrived near the dual asteroid system and crashed into the 160-meter-diameter "Dimoffus" at a speed of 22,530 kilometers per hour. The interceptor is equipped with a high-resolution camera, recording the last moment before the impact. NASA's current statement is that this dual asteroid system has deviated from orbit, but the deviation angle is not mentioned. They were originally not threatening the earth. If this collision changes the orbit, will it pose a threat to the earth? Judging from the unreliable style of American Aerospace in recent years, perhaps it is really necessary to "be worried about nothing".
DART mission diagram
Interestingly, when DART was launched on November 24 last year, this dual asteroid system was about 483.6 million kilometers away from the Earth. After more than 10 months of flight, when the impact occurred, it was only about 11 million kilometers away from the Earth. This caused a thought: When asteroids were about to hit the Earth, will humans be able to move?
Demonstration animation of the moment of impact
In fact, our interception speed is not only very slow, but also often cannot find asteroids close to the earth. For example, on February 26 this year, astronomers suddenly discovered that there was an "new moon" on the earth. An asteroid with a diameter of 2 to 3 meters is orbiting the earth along a complex orbit, becoming the new satellite of the earth. According to astronomers' speculation, this asteroid named 2020 CD3 actually approached the earth in December 2016 and orbited the earth for more than three years before we discovered it. After learning the truth, people couldn't help but burst into a cold sweat.
The second "moon" of the earth, 2020 CD3 asteroid
2020 CD3 asteroid complex trajectory
It is precisely to deal with this situation. my country is building a "large-distributed aperture radar high-resolution deep space active observation" facility known as the "Chinese compound eye". At present, the first phase of the project has been started. It will consist of more than 20 high-resolution distributed radars with an equivalent diameter of 100 meters. It can image asteroids tens of millions of kilometers away and observe asteroids within a range of 150 million kilometers. At the same time, it can also carefully "scan" the areas between the earth and the moon to ensure that no real threat is missed.
The two radars have been built in the first phase of the project
We must not only look carefully, but also actively intercept them like the United States. On October 23 last year, at the first National Planetary Defense Conference held in Guilin, Guangxi, a variety of methods and principles for intercepting asteroids by using nuclear explosions were proposed. From 2023 to 2024, we will use the Long March 3 B rocket to launch an asteroid interceptor, and the physical samples have been created.It not only needs to perform an impact mission, but also to sample and return an asteroid suspected of being a fragment of the moon. That is to say, it needs to complete the missions of the two spacecraft DART and Japan's Hayabusa II spacecraft.
has created the real thing
and its name is "Tianwen 2" (formerly "Zheng He"). When it comes to "Tianwen", many people's first reaction is the Mars rover " Tianwen-1 " and the Mars rover "Zhurong" it carries. But in fact, "Tianwen" is the name of our entire planetary exploration project, and it is not limited to Mars . "Tianwen-2" is aimed at asteroids and comets, and the "Tianwen-3" behind it is returned by Mars.
, which is undergoing engineering testing, is OK. I have said so much, which means that the test of DART asteroid interceptor is enough to record the history of mankind, but it is not necessarily reliable. We must develop a variety of technologies for detecting and intercepting asteroids to ensure that everything is foolproof. In this area, China is not much behind the United States, so don’t rush to kneel down. Finally, now that China and the United States are so focused on landing on the moon and intercepting asteroids, is there really something on the back of the moon? What happened in 1999 is really impossible to hide? Hahaha.
really has this meeting
