ScientistPankaj: NASA's DART mission to smack an asteroid launches this week. Here's how to watch online.

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November 22, 2021

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The Launchpad

James Webb Space Telescope launch delayed to Dec. 22

(C. Gunn/NASA)

The James Webb Space Telescope will have to wait a few more days before taking to the skies after an unplanned clamp band release during launch preparations. Liftoff for Webb has now been delayed from Dec. 18 to Dec. 22.

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NASA's DART mission to smack an asteroid launches this week. Here's how to watch online.

NASA's asteroid impact mission is set to launch, and you can watch the event and several science briefings live. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is scheduled to launch no earlier than 1:20 a.m. EST (0620 GMT) on Wednesday, Nov. 24 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Live launch coverage will run on NASA Television, NASA's YouTube, the NASA app and agency social media channels starting at 12:30 a.m. EST (0530 GMT). You'll be able to watch all of the events on this page and Space.com's homepage, courtesy of NASA.

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Early Black Friday deal: Save 43% on these stargazing binoculars from Celestron

A superb pair of all-round binoculars with 50mm objectives that will make looking at the night sky a great experience, Celestron's Outland X 10x50 binoculars are on sale right now at Amazon. The discounted cost of $75.49 is just a few dollars off the lowest ever price recorded on the site and represents excellent value for money. The rugged binoculars sport multicoated glass and BaK-4 prisms, and the optics are sealed with nitrogen to prevent fogging in adverse conditions.

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Spaceflight

With DART asteroid mission, NASA makes its 1st foray into planetary defense

(Bill Ingalls/NASA)

The first operation to ever collide a spacecraft with an asteroid is set to launch Wednesday (Nov. 24) and will see whether humans can deflect a potentially disastrous cosmic impact. For such an ambitious goal, the NASA project — called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) — had rather humble origins. "I conceived the idea for the mission that became DART on a winter morning in early 2011, while I was doing stretching exercises in my basement," Andrew Cheng, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland and a lead investigator for DART, told Space.com.

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For NASA's DART asteroid impactor mission, success will come down to the last 60 minutes

Following years of preparation, NASA's asteroid impact mission will have just an hour to finalize its path after seeing its target for the first time, engineers told reporters in a news conference on Sunday (Nov. 21). Should all go to plan, the mission will end in fall 2022 with a dramatic impact on an asteroid moonlet. While DART program scientist Tom Statler told reporters the mission is "fairly simple," in that it carries only one instrument, he acknowledged that the instrument will have a lot to do in its last hour before impact.

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Astra is already gearing up for next launch after landmark 1st orbital success

Astra doesn't plan to rest on its laurels for long. The Bay Area company reached orbit for the first time early Saturday morning (Nov. 20), sending a dummy payload aloft for the U.S. military from the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Alaska on a 43-foot-tall (13 meters) rocket called Launch Vehicle 0007 (LV0007). Analyses of LV0007's successful flight continue, and the lessons learned will be incorporated into future rockets and missions, Astra representatives said during a news conference held Monday morning (Nov. 22). And the next liftoff should be just around the corner.

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Science & Astronomy

Just how many threatening asteroids are there? It's complicated.

(Science Photo Library/Andrzej Wojcicki/Getty Images)

So you've heard that an asteroid could slam into Earth wreaking all sorts of havoc, but just how many space rocks out there actually threaten our planet? It's complicated, because the answer depends on what you mean by "threaten."

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Scientists figure out what happens to Earth's disappearing crust

Like a giant broken-up cookie whose pieces float atop a sea of scalding milk, Earth's outer shell is made of (less-tasty) rocky rafts that constantly bump into and dive beneath each other in a process called plate tectonics. So what happens to those hunks of disappearing crust as they dive into Earth's milky interior? It turns out that they get weak and bendy, like a slinky snake toy, but they don't disintegrate completely, new modeling shows.

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Technology

Hubble Space Telescope team revives powerful camera instrument after glitch

(NASA)

The Hubble Space Telescope continues to bounce back from its latest glitch. In late October, the famous space observatory suffered a problem with the synchronization of its internal messaging, causing all five of its main scientific instruments to go into a protective "safe mode." Hubble team members managed to bring one instrument, the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), back online on Nov. 7. And they just scored another success, recovering the observatory's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on Sunday (Nov. 21), NASA officials wrote in an update Monday (Nov. 22). The WFC3 is scheduled to resume science observations on Tuesday (Nov. 23), agency officials added.

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Russian anti-satellite missile test draws condemnation from space companies and countries

Across the globe, nations and space companies alike are speaking out about Russia's anti-satellite (ASAT) test that forced astronauts in space to take cover. On Monday (Nov. 15), the seven astronauts and cosmonauts living on board the International Space Station were forced to take shelter in the spacecraft they flew to the station. The orbiting lab was passing through a cloud of space debris that threatened the station and its inhabitants. Later that day, the U.S. State Department revealed, with confirmation from the Pentagon, that the space debris — which will be trapped in orbit for years to come — was the result of a Russian anti-satellite test.

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Star Wars

Black Friday Star Wars gifts and deals 2021

(Lego)

We've been scouring the galaxy for all the best Star Wars gifts and deals, including some epic Black Friday Star Wars deals.

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Lego Star Wars Skywalker Adventures Pack is nearly 40% off at Walmart

An exclusive Walmart "Star Wars" set lets young padawans follow the adventures of the legendary Skywalker family. The Lego Star Wars Skywalker Adventures Pack is nearly 40% off at Walmart for $50.00, which is an incredible deal given that it includes three sets in a single pack.

Full Story: Space (11/22)