October 15, 2022 by Amy
Asteroids
A few weeks ago we watched NASA crash a spacecraft into a small asteroid named Dimorphos that is orbiting a larger asteroid. The best part was that it was on purpose. The project, appropriately named Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART, is an attempt to secure knowledge and data should a “killer” asteroid ever be headed straight toward Earth. The idea is to change the trajectory of an asteroid, but to not hurt it in any way except for maybe leaving a weensy crater where the projectile—in this case a vending-maching sized craft—crashes. Sorry for the scar, Dimorphos.
NPR explained via a NASA scientist that shoving an asteroid is better than blowing it to bits with a nuclear warhead because blowing it to bits wouldn’t change the trajectory so much as just create many more missiles heading toward Earth. Smaller pieces, yes, but still capable of mass destruction. This is the sort of scientific dystopia that I am here for. Hollywood has made gobs of money off apocalyptic notions such as this, although they always choose to blow something up rather than brush up against it and politely say, “Excuse me.” I guess the writers figure there’s a helluva lot more drama if we kill off Bruce Willis on an asteroid versus showing a dozen scientists and engineers sitting in a control room wearing matching shirts and cheering when their video feed goes red. To my little nerd family, though, the exercise was exciting and fraught with its own drama. “It’s the first time we moved a celestial object!” Well, when you put it that way.
I love NASA acronyms. I mean, the organization itself is an acronym derived from another acronym (it started off as NACA, or National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics before someone decided that committees don’t do shit and it’s better being an administration). DART, though appropriate given the mission parameters, also means I keep conjuring an image of a mid-70s muscle car hurtling through space.
Or, for those youngsters out there, a more recent bland sedan that bears little resemblance to its forebears.
I also like all the synonyms the reporters used to describe the action NASA was hoping to accomplish. “Shove” and “nudge” are my two favorites, and are much more creative than “push.” I suggest “jostle” and “mosh pit,” if it’s possible to use “mosh pit” as a verb. “Dude, we mosh pitted an asteroid, man! Far out.” There’s also ram, knock, butt, strike, jolt, and prod.
We watched livestream video from the collision spacecraft right until the point of impact, and it was pretty damn awesome. Thankfully it did not miss the asteroid and sail on by, at which point we’d have probably heard the collective groan from a bunch of space engineers before they cut the mic. Cool photos, bro.
These fine folks in the APL, or astrophysical propulsion lab, are unabashedly space geeks who have waited a hella long time to see this happen, and I could not be happier for them. My favorite part was watching just how real they are. For everything that happened in the Space Race of the 50s and 60s, all we have is grainy footage that is rarely shown. The stuff that sucks viewers in are Hollywood movies that must, by the very nature of their time limitations, leave out many details and always, always, put a high gloss of cool on everything. A scene from Apollo 13, for example, shows a bunch of male engineers in white short-sleeved Oxfords and black skinny ties squinting at their displays as Flight Director Gene Krantz calls out for “go/no go” signs from his team. The engineers are deadly serious, and the script goes something like this:
“Figo.”
“Go.”
“Guido.”
“Go flight.”
“CVS”
“Go flight.”
“ASAP”
“Go.”
“LMNOP”
“Go for flight.”
For the DART mission, we watched a live stream of mission control, which consisted of a team of engineers (all genders now, thankfully) decked out in bright blue polos sporting an adorable DART logo that depicts a stylized arrow—a dart!—heading toward a dot. As the craft neared their target, the engineers were asked for similar “go/no go” signs. With the first ask, one grinned toothily at the camera and said, “Yeah, I mean, everything looks great! Let’s go!” and flashed a double thumbs-up. The “Woot!” was implied. Every other person had the same giddy countenance, the same nervous excitement. Their innate nerdness and pure sense of joy was palpable even through the television screen.
This whole endeavor reminds me of my favorite arcade game from the 80s, appropriately named “Asteroids.” I spent countless hours standing at an upright Atari Asteroids counsel in the basement of my parents’ friends, blasting away at two-dimensional rocks. And you know what happened? You hit one with a missile and the damn thing explodes into a bunch of asteroidlets, making it harder and harder to avoid them. So I’m thinking the NASA folks had it right that it’s better to give one headed for earth a gentle nudge in a different direction rather than nuke the shit out of it. I bet they played Asteroids, too.
M and I told Zoe about the Asteroids game that night and she immediately found an online version to play. We heard the familiar sounds and peeked over her shoulder. Yep, same game. It hurts that the game is hosted on the AARP site. What does that say about us? (Reader, it says that we are old.)
I took a Planetary Defender test on the Johns Hopkins APL site (because of course they do things like this for kids and I’m nothing if not a big kid) and earned my Planetary Defender certification. Didn’t even have to study much for it, which means I’m a natural. Note to self: find time to add this to my LinkedIn bio because it’s impressive AF.
This week, NASA announced that they did indeed move Dimorphos into a different orbit around Didymos, its much larger brother who I suspect bullies Dimorphos unceasingly simply because of the size difference.
According to a NASA press release: “All of us have a responsibility to protect our home planet. After all, it’s the only one we have,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “This mission shows that NASA is trying to be ready for whatever the universe throws at us.” In other words, NASA is working hard to preserve planet Earth while we on the ground work hard to reduce it to a smoldering ash heap punctuated by catastrophic weather thanks to our carbon emissions. A noble endeavor for the greater good undone by the citizens themselves. If this is not the very definition of a program sponsored by government funding, I don’t know what is.
NASA goes on to say, “Prior to DART’s impact, it took Dimorphos 11 hours and 55 minutes to orbit its larger parent asteroid, Didymos. Since DART’s intentional collision with Dimorphos on Sept. 26, astronomers have been using telescopes on Earth to measure how much that time has changed. Now, the investigation team has confirmed the spacecraft’s impact altered Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos by 32 minutes, shortening the 11 hour and 55-minute orbit to 11 hours and 23 minutes. This measurement has a margin of uncertainty of approximately plus or minus 2 minutes.”
This is pretty cool except they use the term “parent asteroid” and that’s completely fucking up the whole “twin asteroid system” narrative. Mixing up these terms is giving off a whole Freudian vibe, mixed with a little backcountry Arkansas and sister wives.
We haven’t even known about Didymos and Dimorphos that long. Didymos was discovered in 1996 by Joe Montani of the Spacewatch Project at the University of Arizona. Its little brother was found in 2003, only because Didymos fades as Dimorphos passes in front of it while we’re peeping at it through a telescope. Apparently Mr. Montani suspected there might be a smaller sibling hanging out because he suggested the name that means “twin.” When Dimorphos was finally picked up, he got his name from a Greek derivative that means “having two forms.” Astronomers are big on symbolism.
Couldn’t they just as well have named the system Wally and The Beav? Wilbur and Orville? Groucho and Harpo? Peyton and Eli? I mean, the possibilities are endless. Plus, NASA could have had a blast with the graphic representation. Imagine a giant Peyton head being orbited by a smaller Eli head with a vending machine chucked at his cheek. This is just good old fashioned fun.
While this is great news for NASA, and for us, I do worry that Dimorphos will now be subjected to bullying by Didymos even more, because it’s circling that asshat even faster now.
Anyway, big congratulations to NASA and the DART Mission folks. Well done!
(For more good old fashioned fun, go to Google.com and type “NASA Dart Mission” into the search bar. Press enter and watch the screen. You’re welcome.)
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