DART: Crashing a Spacecraft into an Asteroid

NASA is preparing to crash a spacecraft the size of a school bus into an asteroid to assess if a deliberate impact can deflect objects on a collision course with Earth. The University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (IfA) is playing an important role in the space agency’s first full-scale planetary defense test, dubbed Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), scheduled for Monday, September 28 at 1:14 p.m. Hawaii time. The spacecraft will collide head on with Dimorphos, a small asteroid that poses no threat to Earth. Following the impact, UH astronomers will use the UH88 telescope on Maunakea and Faulkes North telescope on Haleakalā, one of a number of observatories part of the Las Cumbres telescope network that the astronomers will utilize around the world, to collect data and determine how Dimorphos was impacted.