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.

  • Madrigal
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    302 years ago

    So the thing that was meant to be a learning experience turned out to be a learning experience?

  • @Diplomjodler@feddit.de
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    152 years ago

    Totally totally totally unanticipated that one. Like every discussion about asteroid defence ever anticipated exactly this kind of scenario.

  • @dustyData@lemmy.world
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    112 years ago

    Unanticipated? I’m sure I can pull out a very serious and scientific simulation that predicted this exact event from 1979. It’s called Asteroids I think.

  • @freecandy@lemmy.world
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    42 years ago

    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
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      72 years ago

      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
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        2 years 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