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Looking Skyward: NASA aims to move asteroids

CAI | By John Basile
Published December 3, 2021 at 1:40 PM EST
Schematic of the DART mission shows the impact on the moonlet of asteroid Didymos. Post-impact observations from Earth-based optical telescopes and planetary radar would, in turn, measure the change in the moonlet’s orbit about the parent body.
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab
Schematic of the DART mission shows the impact on the moonlet of asteroid Didymos. Post-impact observations from Earth-based optical telescopes and planetary radar would, in turn, measure the change in the moonlet’s orbit about the parent body.

A spacecraft launched by NASA will test technologies for preventing an impact of Earth by a hazardous asteroid.

CAI's John Basile talks with Dr. Regina Jorgenson of the Maria Mitchell Observatory on Nantucket about this ambitious project which has overtones of a science fiction movie.
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In This Place Looking Skyward
John Basile
John Basile is the local host of All Things Considered weekday afternoons and a reporter.
See stories by John Basile