Scientists on a mission to slam a spacecraft into a near-Earth asteroid finally got their target - a space rock called Didmos.
The goal of the mission is to find out how humanity can defend itself against potentially dangerous space rocks
The European-American Asteroid Impact and Repulsion mission will attempt to intercept Didmos in 2022, when the space rock will be 1 million kilometers from Earth, European Space Agency officials confirmed.
Didmos is actually a binary system consisting of an 800 meter wide asteroid and a 150 meter wide space rock orbiting each other. Didmos does not pose any threat to Earth in the near future.
The proposed mission will send a probe to collide with a smaller asteroid at a speed of 22.500 km/h, while another spacecraft will film the entire event.
The goal of the mission is to find out how humanity can defend itself against potentially dangerous space rocks. This mission gained additional importance after the meteorite that recently hit Russia and caused enormous damage and human casualties.
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