Gadgetory

tonight asteroids their dark deadly and given half a chance they'll destroy everything and everyone you hold dear so what can we do to protect ourselves well the answer is the only thing we know how to do when we face a massive threat shove it Marly out of the way I'm Claire reilly welcome to watch this space from the CNET studios in sydney this is your guide to everything on earth you need to know about space and tonight the asteroids are coming and we only have one defense NASA's double asteroid redirection test mission set to launch as early as 2020 the dart mission will answer one big question if Earth was on a collision course with an asteroid could send up a spacecraft to nudge it out of the way the mission is simple NASA's high-tech dart spacecraft also known as a kinetic impactor is designed to intercept asteroids and knock them off course before they can hit our planet kind of like a game of pool the dart will be blasted off into space and using its autonomous navigation software and onboard cameras the spacecraft will target the asteroid 11 million kilometres from Earth and deliberately crash into it at a speed of 6 kilometers per second it might sound simple but it sure beats the other options we had all right guys it's done the numbers on the asteroid I think our best bet is operation Armageddon so we're gonna get a group of criminal miners and we're gonna send them up to the asteroid they're gonna bury a nuke inside I'm gonna rework this I'll come back I heard your feedback about the criminal miners and I get it so we're going to do Plan B which is operation deep impact okay same idea we send the people up they nuke it but it goes around earth this time and we'll put everyone on to escape rockets and Elijah Wood was gonna be there but maybe he's gonna get married over there I hear it I can hear it now right let's just um let's just do the diet plan the dot isn't the only spacecraft that's asteroid bound it's being launched alongside the European Space Agency's Hera spacecraft as part of the asteroid impact and deflection assessment or Aida mission Hera is designed to orbit the asteroid and quietly gather data while America's Dart spacecraft is gonna stick a proverbial saucepan on its head and crash into the rock yeah that checks out but even though bashing into an asteroid sounds like a simple concept the dot is actually a very high-tech piece of equipment the cube-shaped spacecraft features onboard cameras and an autonomous navigation system as well as roll out solar arrays or Rosas to juice up the batteries while it flies through space best of all the dart is packed with nasa's evolutionary xenon thrust a commercial or next sea solar electric propulsion system and i really need to get a teleprompter for this doe the next C ion thrusters will not only allow the dart to maneuver its way towards the asteroid in space but it also means NASA doesn't have to have such a tight launch window think of it like a nerf blaster if you're trying to shoot a moving target then you need to shoot it at exactly the right angle and at the right time to make sure you hit it but imagine if your nerve dad had its own tiny thrusters on it you'd be able to shoot the dart switch on the thrusters and it would still make its way over to the asteroid to knock it off course so where are we gonna shoot this dad well nASA has picked up the binary near-earth asteroid 65 803 didymus for its target not to be confused with sir didymus from the 1980s David Bowie classic labyrinth yes that's a niche movie reference DDMS is about eight hundred meters in width and currently orbiting the Sun out past earth the last time it came close to us it's skimmed by about seven million kilometers away the asteroid was discovered in 1990 six but in 2003 scientists realized it had a small moon in tow nicknamed diddy moon so I guess we all know what Sean Combs is calling his next album the dart will target the smaller 150 meter wide Diddy moon which nASA says is more typical of the size of asteroids that could pose a hazard to earth that's basically code for we don't want to bash into the big Arnie twin so we're gonna hit bond with Danny DeVito instead NASA plans to launch the darts sometime between December 2020 and May 2021 it will use its thrusters to spiral out past the orbit of the moon and shoot towards didymus if all goes to plan nASA says it will intercept the DD moon in early October 2022 from there scientists here on earth will be able to use telescopes and planetary radar to measure the DD moon's change in momentum at that point we'll know just how well NASA's shoving method really works and if it doesn't well at least we'll have plenty of time to set up the apocalypse' lottery find Elijah Wood and strap him to an escape rocket bound for interstellar space alright that's it for this week's episode of watch this space we'll be back again in two weeks but if you've enjoyed our broadcast remember to click like on your remote and subscribe to get more space news as it happens I'm Claire Aelita CNET goodnight and Godspeed a lot of people have asked me to stop making so many references to labyrinths on this show and quite frankly I refuse that's right children the asteroids are coming so it's time to Duck and Cover and get to your asteroid bunker to await the inevitable water wars that come after the asteroid hits too grim better cut that Ben so what was with the hole Elijah Wood getting married underage and having to take care of the little baby these people in Armageddon had like criminal record Steve Buscemi why would you let him onto his face Kraft I'm not talking about the character he plays I'm talking about Steve Buscemi the actor cool