A NASA spacecraft collides with an asteroid with the intention of diverting its course

Washington-Sana

A NASA spacecraft collided with an asteroid in an attempt to deliberately divert its course, in an unprecedented test aimed at teaching humanity how to prevent cosmic bodies from destroying life on Earth.

According to the French press agency, the spacecraft, which is slightly less than the size of a car, collided, as expected, with the asteroid at a speed of more than 20 thousand kilometers per hour, while NASA transmitted the facts of this collision directly on the air.

Minutes before the spacecraft collided with the asteroid Demorphos, which is 11 million km from Earth, the image of the object began to grow gradually as the spacecraft approached it.

"We have entered a new era in which we are likely to have the ability to protect ourselves from a dangerous asteroid collision," said Laurie Gleese, director of planetary sciences at NASA.

It is noteworthy that the asteroid Demorphos, which is about 160 meters in diameter, does not pose any danger to Earth, but NASA seeks, through the mission that it carried out yesterday, to test “the defense of the planet in outer space,” as she puts it.

It will take between a few days and a few weeks to know if the path of the small asteroid has really changed due to the collision, and this task will be done by scientists on Earth thanks to their telescopes through which they will observe the variation in brightness as the small asteroid passes in front of the large asteroid that orbits it.

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