this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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Planetary defense test deflected an asteroid but unleashed a boulder swarm (newsroom.ucla.edu)
submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Planetary defense test deflected an asteroid but unleashed a boulder swarm::A UCLA-led study of NASA’s DART mission determined that the strategy presents previously unanticipated risks.

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[–] freecandy@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Pretty cool they were able to measure the change in velocity of an object 6 million miles away with millmeter/second resolution. Not cool that it only slowed down a few mm/second though

[–] Thorndike@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Actually, a few mm/sec is quite a lot. That could easily be more than enough to deflect an asteroid from hitting earth. That few mm/sec will accumulate over the time it takes the asteroid to travel six million miles.

[–] freecandy@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well you would need the vector to predict that not just the speed (which they likely have, didn't see it in the article), but pretty cool nonetheless