{"id":537763,"date":"2026-03-15T10:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T10:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/537763\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T10:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T10:05:10","slug":"nasas-asteroid-deflection-test-for-planetary-defence-even-more-successful-than-we-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/537763\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA’s asteroid deflection test for planetary defence even more successful than we thought"},"content":{"rendered":"

LISTEN | NASA mission shows new evidence that asteroids can be deflected:<\/p>\n

Quirks and Quarks9:03Mission to deflect an asteroid was a smashing success<\/p>\n

One day, we could face the threat of a potentially hazardous asteroid, and scientists say humanity may need the ability to deflect it if it is set on a collision course with Earth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Asteroids vary widely in size, which means impacts can have very different effects \u2014 from small objects that streak across the sky as brilliant fireballs with powerful sonic booms, to massive space rocks large enough to cause global devastation and even mass extinction.<\/p>\n

In 2022, NASA\u2019s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft deliberately smashed<\/a> into the small moon Dimorphos \u2014 which orbits the larger asteroid Didymos \u2014 after travelling 10 months to reach the binary asteroid system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The mission to the region about 11 million kilometres from Earth was a success: scientists found the hit from the spacecraft shortened Dimorphos\u2019s orbit around Didymos by around 32 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And a new study<\/a> published in Science Advances reports an additional effect: the\u00a0collision slightly altered the pair\u2019s trajectory around the sun.\u00a0<\/p>\n

WATCH | NASA spacecraft smashes into asteroid:\"\"<\/p>\n

NASA crashes spacecraft into asteroid to test planetary defence<\/p>\n

An unmanned NASA spacecraft deliberately smashed into an asteroid in an unprecedented test to prepare for the possibility of a planet-killing space rock. While this asteroid was not a threat, it was a test to see whether NASA could potentially deflect one.<\/p>\n

Rahil Makadia, the study\u2019s lead author and a planetary defence scientist from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said the findings are a major step forward in protecting our planet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t need to blow the asteroids up,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we just give it a tiny shove well in advance, then we can potentially push a threatening asteroid clear of the Earth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Why scientists targeted a two-asteroid system<\/p>\n

While some asteroids exist alone, many have small companion moons, while some form binary or triple systems, where two or more rocky bodies orbit<\/a> each other in space.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Derek Richardson, emeritus professor of astronomy at University of Maryland, says the DART team intentionally targeted a binary system, because it is \u201cmuch easier to measure the change in the orbit of a little guy going around a slightly bigger guy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"This infographic shows the effect of DART’s impact on the orbit of Dimorphos.<\/p>\n

(NASA\/Johns Hopkins APL)<\/p>\n

In this system, he says, Dimorphos orbits Didymos roughly every 12 hours, while the full pair takes more than two years to circle the sun. That short cycle allowed scientists to detect orbital changes far more quickly than they could in the system\u2019s much longer heliocentric orbit, which refers to circling around the sun.<\/p>\n

The test also served as a small-scale demonstration of planetary defence: if an asteroid orbiting the sun were ever on a collision course with Earth, the same approach could be used to nudge it.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur task was, \u2018Let\u2019s hit a small version of the solar system,\u2019\u201d said Richardson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During the test, Makadia says the impact instantly blasted off \u201ca bunch of material, like rocks, pebbles, even boulders that were sitting happily on the surface of Dimorphos.\u201d <\/p>\n

While the change in Dimorphos\u2019s orbit around Didymos was detected quickly, measuring the shift in the system\u2019s orbit around the sun required long-term data collected between October 2022 and March 2025.<\/p>\n

\"APlumes of ejecta stream out from the Dimorphos asteroid after NASA\u2019s Double Asteroid Redirect Test, or DART, mission, made impact with it on Sept. 26, 2022 (ASI\/NASA\/APL)<\/p>\n

To track the effects of the impact, scientists combined radar measurements \u2014 which are extremely precise and can pinpoint an asteroid to within 10\u201315 meters of its location, even across millions of kilometers \u2014 with stellar occultations, where an asteroid passing in front of a star allows for extremely precise position measurements. <\/p>\n

Using these methods, Makadia says the spacecraft collision slowed the asteroid system\u2019s orbit by 11.7 microns per second \u2014 about one-tenth the width of a human hair \u2014 which then adds up to about 360 meters per year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was the first time a heliocentric orbit change has been observed, ever,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What the breakthrough means for Earth\u2019s safety<\/p>\n

While there\u2019s no known object threatening Earth, Richardson says the technology demonstrated it has the ability to intervene if one ever appears.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If an asteroid were to strike, he says, the odds are it would first hit the oceans, which cover around 70 per cent of the planet\u2019s surface.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the technology is also relevant for protecting large land masses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over the past century, two major impacts struck Russia: the 1908 Tunguska event and the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor, which exploded in the atmosphere, causing damage and injuries to people on the ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Russia is often hit first, says Richardson, because it is the largest land mass on the planet, with Canada ranking closely behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a dartboard basically, and Canada is taking up a good portion of the dartboard,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A Rahil Makadia, left, is a planetary defence scientist who recently completed his PhD at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Derek Richardson, right, is professor emeritus of astronomy for the University of Maryland. (Submitted by Rahil Makadia and Derek Richardson )<\/p>\n

The DART mission also provides a critical data point for planning future asteroid-deflection efforts, according to Makadia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When the spacecraft struck Dimorphos, the collision blasted a cloud of rocky debris into space, reshaping the asteroid.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The escaping material carried its own momentum, he says, giving Dimorphos an extra push \u2014 known as the momentum-enhancement factor. The research found this effectively \u201cdoubled the total push\u201d delivered by the spacecraft alone.<\/p>\n

These findings can be applied to plan future kinetic impact missions, whether targeting single asteroids or binary systems, providing a reliable way to predict how much an asteroid can be nudged.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should be resting easier tonight because we know how to push asteroids away from the sun and away from the Earth if we need to,\u201d Makadia said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LISTEN | NASA mission shows new evidence that asteroids can be deflected: Quirks and Quarks9:03Mission to deflect an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,66],"class_list":["post-537763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}