See the link to news about the DART spacecraft that will soon slam into an asteroid. The idea is to give an asteroid a tiny nudge while it is far away from Earth, thereby making it change its orbit just a tiny bit.
https://www.foxweather.com/earth-space/nasa-crash-into-asteroid-to-save-earth.amp
This is just a test. The asteroid in question poses no danger to Earth.
It seems to me that a test like this is just to prove that the hardware works. Simple Newtonian physics (and geometry) tells us that, if an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth, but it is very far away, you only need to nudge it a tiny bit, make it change speed or course, or both, just a tiny bit, and it will miss Earth.
The challenge is identifying near Earth asteroids that are still far away, long enough in advance. Then you have time to send a billiard ball to the asteroid and knock it just a bit off course.
Money and resources should first be spent on the technology to identify and predict all of the asteroids that are big enough to catastrophically whack us.
https://www.foxweather.com/earth-space/nasa-crash-into-asteroid-to-save-earth.amp
This is just a test. The asteroid in question poses no danger to Earth.
It seems to me that a test like this is just to prove that the hardware works. Simple Newtonian physics (and geometry) tells us that, if an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth, but it is very far away, you only need to nudge it a tiny bit, make it change speed or course, or both, just a tiny bit, and it will miss Earth.
The challenge is identifying near Earth asteroids that are still far away, long enough in advance. Then you have time to send a billiard ball to the asteroid and knock it just a bit off course.
Money and resources should first be spent on the technology to identify and predict all of the asteroids that are big enough to catastrophically whack us.
