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submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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

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

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

this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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