DART Mission

[paulsutton]

Looks like the NASA Dart mission test was a success.   A couple of questions from this

https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart/dart-news

If an asteroid was heading towards the Earth and we used a similar method to the above to change the trajectory is there a danger that this could cause any asteroid to hit the moon ?

(Similar method, as if this can happen anytime,  even 100 years from now we will have moved on technically but still need to do this. )

In which case, would we need to consider any impacts on Moon bases

Is there a danger that any impact on the moon could cause debris from the Moon to hi the Earth, or any satellites in orbit ?

Is there a danger of moon impact, shifting the orbit of the moon or would any such asteroid need to be a certain size / speed for this to happen

Thanks for any help, 

Paul

 

[iNow]

Yes. We’re playing cosmic billiards here. A mistake could cause a lunar impact. Details matter though and the engineers would likely calculate trajectories to minimize that risk. 

[Janus]

On 9/27/2022 at 7:13 AM, paulsutton said:

Looks like the NASA Dart mission test was a success.   A couple of questions from this

https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart/dart-news

If an asteroid was heading towards the Earth and we used a similar method to the above to change the trajectory is there a danger that this could cause any asteroid to hit the moon ?

(Similar method, as if this can happen anytime,  even 100 years from now we will have moved on technically but still need to do this. )

In which case, would we need to consider any impacts on Moon bases

Is there a danger that any impact on the moon could cause debris from the Moon to hi the Earth, or any satellites in orbit ?

Is there a danger of moon impact, shifting the orbit of the moon or would any such asteroid need to be a certain size / speed for this to happen

Thanks for any help, 

Paul

 

Above is an image showing the relative sizes and distance between Earth and the Moon. Not only is the Moon a significantly smaller target, but there is a huge amount of space that allows for a comfortable miss of the Earth, without even coming close to the Moon.

[paulsutton]

1 hour ago, Janus said:

Above is an image showing the relative sizes and distance between Earth and the Moon. Not only is the Moon a significantly smaller target, but there is a huge amount of space that allows for a comfortable miss of the Earth, without even coming close to the Moon.

Cool thanks for this,  I can't upvote this as it seems my days quota has been reached. 

is this still something we should be thinking about when we start building bases on the moon,  making sure that we can detect and also deflect incoming objects. ?