welcome to lab 360 for all latest happenings from the world of astronomy our race has explored the night sky for thousands of years and pondered over the mysteries of the cosmos 400 years ago galileo focused on the heavens and observed things that no one else had ever seen before hundreds of stars mountains on the moon as well as the satellites of jupiter humanity has come a long way since then we have discovered more than 400 planets orbiting other stars billions of stars in our galaxy millions of galaxies outside of our own and even the faint
radiation that serves as the big bang's echo although the fundamentals of rocketry were tested more than 2 000 years ago we have only recently developed the technology to build rockets for space exploration and in 1961 yuri gagarin became the first human to explore space since then there have been multiple manned missions with the apollo missions being the most successful of them all humans are destined to travel to and explore space just as they did when they first explored the new world in the middle ages for the purpose of space exploration people have sent up both
humans and machines during the previous few decades but enough about the past let's jump to the present shall we we all know that nasa frequently makes headlines for its distinctive social media posts everyone is talking about a picture of astronaut bruce mccandless 2 that was taken over 40 years ago in february 1984. bruce mccandless can be seen floating freely in space away from the safety of the space shuttle in the now viral photograph the picture was shot as the astronaut was exiting the challenger space shuttle to practice for a satellite repair mission the photograph represents
a significant accomplishment because it shows an astronaut walking outside of the spaceship for the first time floating above 170 miles or 273.5 kilometers above the earth's surface mccandless remained alive with just the help of his man-maneuvering unit describing the photo nasa stated that mccandless is farther away from the safety from his spaceship than any other astronaut had ever been the stunning photograph has been shared on twitter sharing the long-lost photo the agency wrote perhaps the most terrifying space photograph to date astronaut bruce mccandless too floats completely untethered away from the safety of the space shuttle
with nothing but his man-maneuvering unit keeping him alive the first person in history to do so in fact nasa has even described this photo as one of the most terrifying photos ever taken can you imagine yourself floating in the vast vacuum of space the thought itself sends shivers down our spine it's scary because it's impossible to comprehend the vastness of the cosmos and how we as a race are so insignificant compared to it but it's the effort that counts and we are making a lot of efforts to send more and more people into space can
we expect more such photos in the future let's move on shall we in other news nasa is planning a mission to smash a spacecraft into an asteroid at an incredible speed of 23 000 kilometers per hour in order to divert it from colliding with earth double asteroid detection test or dart is the name of this mission today an asteroid strike on earth will create the same situation that damaged our planet and killed off all the dinosaurs but the target audience this time around will be people there aren't many ways to prevent an asteroid hit on
earth but that is about to change very soon the what-ifs of world destruction have always been explored in apocalyptic films like deep impact armageddon and don't look up which starred legendary actors leonardo dicaprio and jennifer lawrence in lead roles nasa's attempt to knock an asteroid off course is not a movie but a real planetary defense test mission that began to unfold in 2021 when dart was launched the most well-known method of world destruction is asteroids colliding with earth now nasa is getting ready to maybe defend the earth from a threat that is posed by asteroids
which is very similar a stunning 240 million dollars will be spent on the dart mission the mission's objective is to crash a spaceship onto the demorphos asteroid in order to divert it from its course demorphis belongs in a system of two asteroids it is the smaller of the two and orbits the larger asteroid which is called dydemos which in turn is orbiting the sun the nasa asteroid mission is going to conduct an experiment to learn more about what occurs when a craft is slammed against a space rock even if this asteroid poses no threat to
earth if a real asteroid actually threatens to strike our planet this knowledge will be put to use it will aid in stopping the end of the world and could perhaps save humanity from extinction the primary spacecraft for the dark project was launched into orbit in november 2021 the satellite is designed by the italian space agency a second spacecraft is scheduled to launch by 2026 to measure the true impact according to nasa dart is the first mission devoted to researching and demonstrating a technique for deflecting asteroids through kinetic impact according to a few experts this method
is the most technologically mature approach for mitigating a potential hazardous asteroid on top of helping them figure out exactly how much an impact would change an asteroid's motion the mission should give scientists a better idea of where in an asteroid's orbit may be the best place to hit it from both in terms of impact and in terms of where it may be the most accessible from earth this is in addition to helping them determine precisely how much an impact would change an asteroid's motion and this demonstration will help prepare the planetary defense experts for dangerous
near-earth objects down the road nasa says that no known asteroid the same size as or larger than demorphos has a significant chance to hit earth in the next 100 years however only about 40 of such asteroids have been found nasa cannot deflect an asteroid unless they have already detected it and so the most important thing required for planetary defense is to look for such asteroids track them and try and project their trajectory we have to at all costs stay one step ahead of them but the question looming in everyone's minds is does this test pose
a risk to earth in any way the asteroid they're using for this test is one that isn't expected to come anywhere close to earth but some spectators have feared that this test could inadvertently redirect the asteroids path into earth only time will tell if this experiment will work for us or work against us in 2022 alone we have had many close calls with asteroids and have always come out on top humans are explorers and pioneers and have always been successful in finding solutions neil degrasse tyson once said why can't we summon the ingenuity and courage
of the generations that came before us the dinosaurs never saw that asteroid coming what's our excuse do you agree with him what do you guys think drop in your comments below and don't forget to subscribe to LAB 360 for all the news and videos from the world of astronomy!
