10-11-2022, 08:20 PM
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Master Modeler
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
Posts: 6,507
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Originally Posted by Earl
It appears DART has made an impact (no pun intended) on Dimorphos' orbit around Didymos. From NASA this afternoon:
"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."
Full article link: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/...motion-in-space
Earl |
I'm happy that these results have been on the national news all day, keeping it in the public's awareness. I also read a few weeks ago--I haven't been able to re-find the webpage yet--that NASA is preparing to store the nine-megaton W-53 / B53 hydrogen bomb warheads. (The W-53 [see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B53_nuclear_bomb ] was developed for the Titan II ICBM, and the B53 free-fall bomb used the W-53.) The military retired the W-53 / B53 because such high-yield nuclear weapons aren't preferred in modern nuclear doctrine, and because it doesn't have some of the fuzing safety devices that modern nuclear weapons have. But the W-53 is excellent for deflecting NEOs (asteroids and comets), using stand-off detonations. The storage plan--which is the same one that Pakistan and Israel use--will involve storing the W-53s' components at geographically-separated locations (different NASA Field Centers), so that they can't be assembled and used until needed. Also:
Reading up on planetary defense--which can also economically benefit the entire world--(see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance ), I came across a good primer paper, "Exoatmospheric Plowshares: Using a Nuclear Explosive Device for Planetary Defense Against an Incoming Asteroid" (see: https://scholarship.law.georgetown....&context=facpub ), whose conclusions--including those having to do with international law, the legal framework for using nuclear explosives constructively, for a pleasant change!--are now being worked on. |
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