NASA's DART Spacecraft Successfully Smacks a Space Rock—Now What?

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September 29, 2022

Dear Reader, This week, we're celebrating NASA's DART mission, which appears to have been, ahem, a smashing success. On Monday, the golf-cart-sized spacecraft slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos in a first-of-its-kind test of humanity's ability to shift the orbits of potentially hazardous space rocks to protect life on Earth. Whether or not the impact led to a significant shift in Dimorphos's motion will only become clear in coming weeks, but already the event has generated impressive results for a variety of telescopes that worked in unison to capture the celestial fireworks. Elsewhere this week, we have stories on space diamonds, the latest findings from China's Mars rover, Jupiter's closest approach to Earth in almost a half-century, and more. Enjoy!

Lee Billings, Senior Editor, Space & Physics @LeeBillings

Planetary Science NASA's DART Spacecraft Successfully Smacks a Space Rock--Now What? The DART spacecraft has purposefully crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos, hopefully changing its orbit by a few minutes, in a milestone test of future planetary defense techniques By Jonathan O'Callaghan

Engineering For 'The First Lady of Engineering,' Freedom Meant Facing Down Racism and Sexism ... And Breaking Her Own Rules Yvonne Y. Clark, known as Y.Y. throughout her career, had a lifetime of groundbreaking achievements as a Black female mechanical engineer. In the second episode of the newest season of the Lost Women of Science podcast, we see Y.Y.'s true grit as she fights for recognition and a place at the science table By Katie Hafner,Carol Sutton Lewis,The Lost Women of Science Initiative

Planetary Science China's Mars Rover Finds Hints of Catastrophic Floods Radar images from the Zhurong rover reveal clues to the history of a largely unexplored region By Smriti Mallapaty,Nature magazine

Planetary Science Extra Hard Space Diamonds May Have Formed in an Ancient Cosmic Collision A new formation method for rare "lonsdaleite" diamonds may illuminate a better way to produce them on Earth By Daniel Leonard

Geology Ultra Rare Diamond Suggests Earth's Mantle Has an Ocean's Worth of Water A diamond contains the only known sample of a mineral from Earth's mantle—and hints at oceans' worth of water hidden deep within our planet By Stephanie Pappas

Culture 'Longtermism' Movement Misses the Importance of War A moral movement called longtermism, which focuses on protecting humanity's future, dwells too much on artificial intelligence and not enough on war By John Horgan

Astronomy See Jupiter Shine During its Closest Approach to Earth Since 1963 Sept. 26 marks an unmissable chance to view the massive planet Jupiter, whose opposition and perigee very rarely coincide By Robert Lea,SPACE.com

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 327, Issue 3

QUOTE OF THE DAY "We are embarking on a new era for humankind. An era in which we have the potential capability to protect ourselves from something like a dangerous asteroid impact." Lori Glaze, director of NASA's planetary science division

FROM THE ARCHIVE NASA's DART Mission Could Help Cancel an Asteroid Apocalypse Our planet is vulnerable to thousands of "city-killer" space rocks. If—when—one is found on a collision course with Earth, will we be ready to deflect it? By Robin George Andrews | November 2021

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