Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, talks to Space.com's Elizabeth Howell about the DART mission. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will impact a 'moonlet' in the Didymos asteroid system to attempt to alter its orbit on Sept. 26, 2022. [NASA DART Impact Preview]
Credit: Space.com | visualizations: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center| edited by [Steve Spaleta]
Music: A New Beginning (Theta Drone L216Hz R220Hz) by Bruce Brus / courtesy of Epidemic Sound
Credit: Space.com | visualizations: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center| edited by [Steve Spaleta]
Music: A New Beginning (Theta Drone L216Hz R220Hz) by Bruce Brus / courtesy of Epidemic Sound
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 - Welcome everybody.
00:09 A spacecraft called DART is planning an ambitious mission
00:12 to crash into an asteroid and to learn more,
00:15 we're talking with Thomas Brucken,
00:17 head of science at NASA.
00:18 And so why was this asteroid system chosen for the mission?
00:22 - Hey, so glad to talk to you about this.
00:25 Well, look, it's really hard to measure minute deflections
00:30 that really matter in the long run
00:31 when it comes to the binary defense business.
00:34 It's really hard to do that in space.
00:36 This double asteroid system was chosen because it,
00:40 because the fact that the smaller body,
00:42 the one we're gonna hit,
00:43 is in orbit around a slightly bigger one
00:45 in a 12 hour orbit.
00:46 Minute deflections lead to orbit changes.
00:50 So the person who came up with this, right,
00:52 just really, just amazingly innovative, right?
00:55 And so we can measure using the orbit changes,
00:59 any deflections that actually really matter in real life.
01:03 - And we call this a planetary defense mission.
01:05 Can you explain a little bit more about what that means
01:07 and why it's important?
01:09 - Look, I mean, we're really excited every time
01:11 our space missions protect life on Earth.
01:14 And as we're looking at the hurricane barreling
01:16 onto Florida and that region, you know,
01:19 we remember, of course, that the key assets
01:21 that provide input are missions that are out there
01:24 that were NASA built, operated by NOAA,
01:26 our close agency friends.
01:28 But in the same way, there's threats from deep space
01:31 and these, you know, near-Earth objects
01:34 that impact the Earth from time to time.
01:37 Not very often, but they can really change,
01:39 you know, cause havoc on Earth.
01:42 And so basically what we're really trying to learn
01:44 is how to deflect and defend against those objects.
01:49 So it's about knowing all the threats.
01:51 We know roughly 45% of all the objects, we think,
01:55 at 140 meters or larger.
01:59 So the other 55% are still yet to be observed.
02:02 But once we observe on how would we deflect it
02:05 out of the way, that's what we're proving tonight.
02:08 - So DART is actually going to be crashing
02:10 into the moon of an asteroid rather than the asteroid itself.
02:12 And so why did you make that decision?
02:15 - Going into Demorphis, which is the moon of Didymos,
02:18 is really the best way of measuring
02:22 that minute deflection of that moonlet,
02:25 kind of around or this double asteroid system, right?
02:29 So again, we're going into the lightest of the two
02:32 because frankly, as a result of that,
02:36 the deflection, kind of the velocity that we give it,
02:38 the small perturbation is the largest.
02:40 So that's why we're going there.
02:42 - And how are we going to be finding out more
02:44 about the orbit of Demorphis after this happens?
02:47 - So that's really exciting because a lot of the orbit,
02:50 of course, both the discovery in 1996,
02:54 but also the orbit that kind of analysis thus far
02:57 were done from the ground.
02:59 And so basically from the ground,
03:01 we'll be able to see those changes in the next few days,
03:05 right, after the impact.
03:07 So we really look forward to having the data available
03:09 from our ground-based observatories around the world
03:13 that help us with this.
03:14 - And lastly, we're talking about planetary defence
03:17 and the importance of doing so,
03:18 but can you explain a little bit more just for context,
03:21 how worried we are about a problem
03:23 in say the next hundred years or so?
03:25 - At this moment in time, frankly, and that's good news,
03:28 we are not aware of a single object
03:30 that's on collision course in the next hundred years.
03:33 So we really are not at this moment in time,
03:37 putting it at the top of our worry list.
03:39 Because of the magnitude of the impacts though,
03:41 and because of the fact that about half of these objects
03:44 have not been discovered yet,
03:46 we really want to get the tools together
03:49 to defend against it.
03:51 And so it's the appropriate level of attention we're giving it
03:55 and the appropriate level of investments
03:57 for this innovative mission that tonight will make history.
04:01 - Well, thank you very much.
04:03 That was Thomas Zurbuchen, the head of science at NASA,
04:05 and continue to watch our coverage at space.com.
04:08 - Thank you so much.
04:09 (upbeat music)
04:13 (upbeat music)