Collision with an asteroid successfully completed

Collision with an asteroid successfully completed

At 1:14 AM CEST today (27 September 2022), American spacecraft Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) conducted the first successful planetary defense test in the history: it impacted asteroid Dimorphos (Greek for “two forms”), which orbits a larger asteroid Didymos (Greek for “twin”). Transfer of kinetic energy by an impact (i.e., collision-induced alteration of the asteroid trajectory) is one of the possible mechanisms of planetary defense. The unique experiment was contributed by Czech scientists and technical engineers of the Astronomical Institute Czech Acad Sci, Brno University of Technology and also by Tomáš Kohout of the Institute of Geology Czech Acad Sci. Further details are available, for instance, from the press releases of the Czech Academy of Sciences and NASA.