Asteroids heading straight for planet Earth aren’t just a scenario out of a Hollywood thriller. Luckily, scientists around the world have long been preparing for such an “Armageddon” scenario.
Kate The Chemist speaks with Nancy Chabot, one of the leaders behind NASA’s planetary defense missions, about destroying asteroids in space before they reach our atmosphere.
Every day, Earth’s atmosphere is hit with more than 100 tons of tiny sand sized particles coming from space.
Luckily, our atmosphere is filled with gases that turn asteroids into shooting stars and keep us safe from incoming debris.
Even still, thousands of meteorites slip through the atmosphere every year and make it to the surface. And they can cause a lot of damage.
Case in point: the infamous Chicxulub asteroid that landed off the coast of Mexico 66 million years ago and likely caused the mass extinction of dinosaurs.
“The fact that our planet and other planets are actually hit by asteroids is not science fiction. It's actually science fact,” says Nancy Chabot.
Chabot is a planetary scientist who is such a big deal that she got an asteroid named after her. (Don’t worry, that one is not a threat to Earth in any way.)
Chabot works in the applied physics lab at Johns Hopkins University, and has been on five field teams searching for meteorites in Antarctica. More importantly, she’s one of the masterminds behind NASA’s planetary defense experiments called the Double Asteroid Defense Mission (also referred to as DART.)
Fun fact: If you Google “DART Mission,” a funny thing will happen to your screen -- it’s safe, we promise!
Chabot and a brilliant team of international scientists and engineers devised the DART mission to see if they could use something called a “kinetic impact” to actually alter the motion of an asteroid in space. It only cost a mere $330 million.
In 2022, scientists from all seven continents used their telescopes to capture images and videos of the DART spacecraft slamming into its target: a tiny moonlet asteroid Dimorphos.
On the most recent episode of the KCUR Studios podcast Seeking A Scientist, Kate The Chemist talks to Chabot about how the DART mission came together, and what lessons they learned.
How much should we be worried about asteroids hitting Earth? And what do the movies get right or wrong?
Spoiler alert: The stress part is real, but sending a team of deep sea oil drillers like Bruce Willis is not part of the plan.
But don’t worry, NASA has something in mind.
“Usually the Hollywood blockbusters are more of a last-minute, you know, ‘We haven't been prepared,’” says Chabot. “And actually we're taking all of these steps to be prepared.”
Listen to the episode to find out more.
Additional sources from Seeking A Scientist:
- "What’s the Difference Between Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors?"
- "115 Years Ago: The Tunguska Asteroid Impact Event"
- "Remembering the Chelyabinsk Impact 10 Years Ago, and Looking to the Future"
- "Russian Fireball Explosion Shows Meteor Risk Greater Than Thought"
- "NASA’s DART spacecraft successfully collides with asteroid"
- "Scientists hail DART success 6 months after historic asteroid crash"
- "Why ground-based telescopes are key to DART asteroid-smashing mission’s success"
- "DART’s Small Satellite Companion Takes Flight Ahead of Impact
- "Scientists Following a Dusty Tail to Shape the Story of DART’s Impact"
- "NASA’s DART Mission Confirms Crashing Spacecraft into Asteroids Can Deflect Them"
- "Asteroid Lost 1 Million Kilograms After Collision with DART Spacecraft"
- "Orbital Period Change of Dimorphos Due to the DART Kinetic Impact"
- "Physical Properties of Asteroid Dimorphos As Derived From the DART Impact"
- "Asteroid is a ‘Very Different Body’ After Being Hit by NASA Spacecraft, Scientist Says"
Seeking A Scientist is a production of KCUR Studios. It's made possible with support from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, where scientists work to accelerate our understanding of human health and disease.
It's hosted by Dr. Kate Biberdorf, AKA Kate the Chemist. Our senior producer is Suzanne Hogan. Our editor is Mackenzie Martin. Our digital editor is Gabe Rosenberg.
This episode was mixed by Suzanne Hogan and David McKeel, with support from Byron Love and Genevieve DesMarteau.
Our original theme music is by The Coma Calling. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.
