Researchers at Michigan State University played a part in proving a mission to change the path of an asteroid last year was successful.
In October, NASA crashed an uncrewed spacecraft into an asteroid millions of miles from earth. Light measurements taken at the MSU Observatory helped prove the orbit of Dimorphos (die-MORPH-ohss) around another asteroid was shortened by more than a half-hour.
MSU planetary scientist Seth Jacobson says students were part of the team.
Jacobson had this to say, “So we were involved in both those light curve measurements, but also seeing how dust was created from the impact, and how much dust or ejecta was being created, and that’s intimately tied up with this idea of momentum transfer, because some of that dust that’s blown away is carrying momentum with it.”
Planet Earth was under no real threat from the asteroids.
The test was the first attempt to see if it was possible to prevent one from crashing into Earth by changing its trajectory.