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Planetary Defense – DART Mission – Free Activity Event
July 31, 2025 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
- DART: Double Asteroid Redirection Test—The First Planetary Defense Test Mission
- Talk Description: NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission was a groundbreaking planetary defense experiment designed to test if we could actually “nudge” an asteroid off course. Imagine a small spacecraft, about the size of a golf cart, deliberately crashing into an asteroid in space. That’s essentially what DART did! Its target was Dimorphos, a small moonlet orbiting a larger asteroid named Didymos, neither of which posed any threat to Earth. By intentionally smashing into Dimorphos at incredible speeds in September 2022, DART successfully changed the moonlet’s orbital period around its larger companion by 33 minutes—far exceeding expectations. This historic impact proved that the “kinetic impactor” technique, where a spacecraft directly collides with an asteroid, is a viable method to potentially alter the trajectory of a hazardous asteroid, giving us a vital tool in protecting our planet should a dangerous one ever be headed our way.
- Speaker: Dr. Ramin Lolachi (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)
- Speaker Bio: Dr. Ramin Lolachi is a planetary scientist working for the University of Maryland, Baltimore Co. (UMBC) based at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center. He was part of the DART Investigation Team and used images of the impact, taken by the Italian Space Agency’s LICIACube spacecraft as it flew past, to measure how much mass was ejected. His research interests include looking at dust on airless bodies like the Moon and asteroids (more interesting than you think!) and looking for water in the atmosphere of Mars.
- Webinar Connection Info:
- Join the meeting now
- Meeting ID: 267 145 142 081 9
- Passcode: 4GU9Zu6T
- Join by phone: +1-256-715-9946 (phone conference ID: 394 308 012#)
