Asteroid Collisions vs NASA by Diane Burton

(Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben)

Who doesn't love a good disaster movie? Probably my favorite is "Armageddon" where Bruce Willis and a bunch of misfits save Earth from a killer asteroid. Released near the same time was another disaster movie "Deep Impact" with Tea Leoni. (spoiler alert: she doesn't save Earth). The methods used in these movies are so far-fetched that we'd better not depend on Hollywood to save us if an asteroid really does threaten to destroy our planet. 

Last week, NASA proved there's a better way. Nudge it. That's not dramatic enough to hold anyone's attention for a two-hour movie. DART, an unmanned spacecraft, slammed into a moonlet of a bigger asteroid and changed the orbit of the big one.

This was just a test. No "planet killer" asteroid was headed for Earth. This one, Didymos, was minding its own business, happily orbiting the sun until NASA decided to use it as a test. Is it possible for an asteroid to hit Earth? Sure. That's what destroyed the dinosaurs. 

Did it work? Did DART divert Didymos' orbit? It will take months to know for sure.

Meantime, we can sleep easier knowing that NASA is on the job, not Hollywood. 

Asteroids and Earth - Armageddon? by Diane Burton

Did you ever see the movie Armageddon? Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, and a team of oil drillers have a month to save Earth from destruction by an asteroid.

I love action/adventure stories. I love science fiction. Even more, I love science fiction adventure. However, I do like my adventures to be plausible. In the movie, why do they have only a month from the time an asteroid heading for Earth is noticed? The head of NASA (Billy Bob Thornton) says the reason it wasn't noticed is "it's a big-ass sky." Okay, I agree with that, but sheesh. Professionals and amateurs are watching that sky. And nobody noticed? 

Come. On.

Guess what's going on this week? No, NASA didn't call Bruce and company to save Earth. The International Academy of Astronautics' 2019 Planetary Defense Conference is meeting to discuss how to prepare for an asteroid collision and how to protect Earth and its people.

Are they going to detonate a nuclear bomb (that will split the asteroid in half) before it reaches a critical point where it will do no good? That was the concept in the movie. Or will they slam a spacecraft (unmanned, I hope) into the asteroid to nudge it off course?

Here's the plan. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART. will launch in 2022. Besides nudging the asteroid so it bypasses Earth, it will also collect other scientific data. Do you want to know more? Here's a link:
 https://www.space.com/42853-dart-asteroid-impact-defense-mission-2022.html

I just hope an asteroid doesn't come sooner. If so, Bruce and his boys had better gear up.