NASA launches first ever asteroid deflection mission
A spacecraft has been launched from California this morning carrying with it humanity’s greatest hopes of being able to protect our planet from a cataclysmic asteroid impact.
Fortunately the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission is only a test, and if anything goes wrong before it intercepts its target next September, then Earth won’t suffer as a result.
But the stakes are high. Scientists including Stephen Hawking have described impact events as among the greatest threats facing humanity – and even if the DART planetary defence mission proves successful, huge questions about our future readiness will remain.
The DART spacecraft’s collision will be observed by the LICIACube satellite. Pic: NASA
DART launched on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at the Vandenberg Space Force base in California.
Roughly the size of a small car, the spacecraft has been developed by NASA and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory to demonstrate for the first time the “kinetic impactor technology” using a direct hit on an asteroid to adjust its speed and path.
A small LICIACube satellite developed by the Italian space agency will travel alongside it to observe the collision which will take place when DART and its target asteroid are within 11 million kilometres of Earth, enabling ground-based telescopes to measure the impact too.
DART is targeting a near-Earth double asteroid known as Didymos and Dimorphos, with the latter being a “moonlet” estimated to be about 160 metres in size – a good test object, but not one that is actually expected to collide with Earth.
It will hit Dimorphos at a speed of roughly 6.6 kilometres per second and, in doing so, shorten its orbit about Didymos – proving that a kinetic impact can change an asteroid’s trajectory.
This nudge technique is preferred to blowing asteroids apart in the style of the film Armageddon, because the fragments from such an explosion could continue to imperil the planet.
A study from researchers at Johns Hopkins University in the US published in 2019 warned that for objects large enough to be targeted it was likely the blasted away fragments would reform under gravity.
The DART spacecraft is just the size of a small car, not including its solar arrays. Pic: NASA
How important is the mission?
The good news is that scientists are completely confident that no asteroids larger than 1km will strike our planet within the next century – the maximum period we can see map out their movements for due to the unpredictability of dynamic systems.
What’s also good is that even among much smaller asteroids, ones larger than just 140 metres, there are no known objects that have a significant chance of striking Earth within the next 100 years too.
The bad news is that only 40% of these asteroids have been found, and the worse news is that asteroids can be much smaller than 140m and still cause significant damage to regions or cities.
Humanity’s ability to detect asteroids before they impact the planet is still in its infancy, in part because of limits set by the laws of physics – our ability to survey asteroids in the dark of space in our solar system depends on them reflecting light towards us, and that depends on direction of their approach relative to the sun and the phase of the moon.
There have been more than 1,200 impacts of asteroids larger than a metre in size since 1998 and of those impacts humanity has only predicted five in advance – 0.42% – and even those predictions came with just hours to spare.
This timeline offers much less wriggle-room than the five years between the DART mission getting approval at NASA and its scheduled rendezvous with Dimorphos next year.
Never mind deflecting an asteroid off-course, hours wouldn’t even offer enough time to evacuate a town.
But astronomers hope and expect that new technologies and monitoring systems will improve our ability to make these predictions in the future – giving us more time – and the DART mission is just the first step in us proving that there is something we can do about it when we know something is coming.
This video grab from YouTube footage shows the meteor streaking across the sky in the Chelyabinsk
What damage can impact events cause?
Impact events are believed to have radically reshaped our planet throughout history, from the formation of the moon through to several enormous extinction events.
The Chicxulub crater is believed to have been caused by a large asteroid approximately 10km in diameter striking the Earth just over 66 million years ago, leading a very sudden mass extinction of an estimated 75% of all animal and plant life on the planet – including the dinosaurs.
A similar scale impact is not expected for the next 100 years at least, but significant damage could be caused by smaller asteroids.
Back in 2013, a meteor exploded in the atmosphere near Chelyabinsk in Russia, causing an enormous fireball, shattering windows, and leading to potentially more than a thousand people to seek medical treatment for their indirect injuries.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft onboard ahead of launch. Pic: NASA/AP
That asteroid is believed to have been roughly 20 metres in size and was completely undetected before it entered the atmosphere, in part because it approached Earth from the direction of the sun – meaning it reflected no light to telescopes on Earth revealing its approach.
When it burned up in the atmosphere and exploded it briefly outshone the sun and the heat from the blast inflicted severe burns on observers below, as well as smashing windows and rattling buildings.
According to Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the Chelyabinsk meteor created “an airburst and shockwave that struck six cities across the country - and [sent] a stark reminder that dangerous objects can enter Earth’s atmosphere at any time”.
“Astronomers estimate there are tens of thousands of near-Earth asteroids close to 500ft (150m) wide and larger, big enough to cause regional devastation if they actually hit Earth.
“The Chelyabinsk object was just about 60ft (18m) wide, demonstrating that even small asteroids can be of concern - and making real-world tests of space-based planetary defence systems all the more important,” the university added.
Politicians have sent messages of support to Joe Biden, who has been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
The 82-year-old, who is the oldest person to ever serve as US president, was described as a “fighter” with people wishing him a “fast and full recovery”.
US President Donald Trump said he was “saddened” by the news, adding: “We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.”
Former US president Barack Obama said: “Michelle and I are thinking of the entire Biden family.
“Nobody has done more to find breakthrough treatments for cancer in all its forms than Joe, and I am certain he will fight this challenge with his trademark resolve and grace. We pray for a fast and full recovery.”
Read more: Biden diagnosed with ‘aggressive’ form of prostate cancer
Barack Obama (right) with Joe Biden at a campaign event in 2022. File pic: Reuters
British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was “very sorry to hear President Biden has prostate cancer”.
“All the very best to Joe, his wife Jill and their family, and wishing the President swift and successful treatment,” he added.
After a poor debate performance against Mr Trump and amid escalating concerns for his health, Mr Biden withdrew from the 2024 election and endorsed his vice president Kamala Harris.
Ms Harris wrote on X: “We are keeping him, Dr. Biden, and their entire family in our hearts and prayers during this time.
“Joe is a fighter – and I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience, and optimism that have always defined his life and leadership. We are hopeful for a full and speedy recovery.”
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Mr Biden’s diagnosis: What we know
Former US president Bill Clinton wrote on social media: “My friend Joe Biden’s always been a fighter. Hillary and I are rooting for him and are keeping him, Jill, and the entire family in our thoughts.”
Hillary Clinton, who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2016, said she was “thinking of the Bidens as they take on cancer, a disease they’ve done so much to try to spare other families from”.
Speaker of the US House Of Representatives Mike Johnson said it was “sad news” and his family “will be joining the countless others who are praying” for Mr Biden.
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Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi described Mr Biden as a “great American patriot” and said she was “praying for him to have strength and a swift recovery”.
Mr Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, wrote on social media he and his wife were “united in prayer for the Biden Family during this difficult time”.
In 1990s and early 2000s New York, Sean “Diddy” Combs was the person to be seen with.
Now on trial in Manhattan, his hair grey, his beard grown, it’s hard to imagine that he was “the Pied Piper… of the most elite level of partying of that time” – but that’s how Amy DuBois Barnett describes him.
She was the first Black-American woman to run a major mainstream magazine in the US, and based in Manhattan at a time when hip hop was at its zenith.
“Urban culture really ran the city,” she says. “That’s where so much of the money was… you had all the finance bros trying to get into Puffy (Combs) parties, all the fashion executives trying to get into Puffy parties.”
And while he was welcomed by the highest echelons of the arts and entertainment world, she says: “He was never known for being a calm kind of individual.”
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs in New York in July 2004. Pic: AP
Combs was “very dismissive” with her, and she admits: “Puff never particularly liked me that much.”
But DuBois Barnett would often get invited to his parties because she was able to feature his up-and-coming artists in her magazines.
From editor-in-chief of Ebony magazine, she’d go on to become the editor-in-chief of Honey and Teen People magazines, and then deputy editor of Harper’s Bazaar.
She says the man she met at those parties “lacked warmth” and seemed “complicated”.
Amy DuBois Barnett
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“When he walked in the room, all of the energy changed. Puffy had his trusted individuals around him… immediately the area around him would become kind of crowded with everybody vying for his attention,” she says.
“I think that was also partially why he didn’t particularly like me because I wasn’t really vying for his attention.
“He really reserved that attention for the people that he was either attracted to… or the people that he thought were important enough to his business success.”
Amy DuBois Barnett (right) with publisher Desiree Rogers at an event for Ebony magazine
She says it was common knowledge that he wasn’t someone to cross due to “rumours… of what he could do”.
“There were a lot of people within journalism, within media, within other industries that were afraid of his influence and also afraid of his temper,” she adds.
“When things at parties would not go his way or somebody didn’t bring him something quickly enough, or… the conversation wasn’t going his way… he would just kind of snap and he was just not afraid to yell at whoever was there.
“There was not a lot of boundaries in his communication, let’s just put it that way.”
Combs on the red carpet at the height of his success
But she says it was a time when a tremendous amount of misogyny was running throughout music, things that in today’s culture would certainly give pause for thought.
“So many things happened to me, everything from getting groped at parties to getting locked in a limousine with music executives and having him refuse to let me out until I did whatever he thought I was going to do, which I didn’t.”
She insists: “We didn’t have the vocabulary to understand the degree to which it was problematic… it was a thread that ran throughout the culture.”
Getting off a private jet during his heyday
Star-studded parties were the ultimate invite
At the time, a ticket to one of Combs’s star-studded “white parties” was the ultimate invite.
She admits: “It was like nothing you’ve ever seen before… the dress code was very strict.
“No beige, no ecru, absolutely white, you would literally be turned away if your outfit was wrong. Puffy did not sort of tolerate people in his parties that didn’t look ‘grown and sexy’ as it were.”
She says people would mingle by the poolside listening to the best DJs in the world, while topless models posed dressed as mermaids and waiters handed out weed brownies from silver platters.
“It was every boldface name you could possibly imagine, just this gorgeous crowd.”
At an event with model Naomi Campbell
Behind the glamour, prosecutors now allege there was a man capable of sexual abuse and violence, and a serious abuse of power. Criminal charges which he’s already pleaded not guilty to and strenuously denies.
Without question, Combs had the golden touch. Expanding his music career into business enterprises that in 2022 reportedly took his net worth to around £1bn. For decades his success story was celebrated.
“I think that in the black community, there is a feeling that if a black man is successful you don’t want to bring him down because there are not that many… these are cultural forces that are rooted in the systemic racism that’s present in the United States… but I think that these were part of what potentially protected Puffy against people speaking out.”
Couple became ‘isolated and very unhappy’
While Combs had amassed a small fortune over the course of two decades which she encountered him, the former magazine editor says his behaviour had markedly changed from the first party she went to, to her last.
“The last was a post-Grammys party, in 2017 or 2018, and just the vibe was very different. He was really kind of isolated in a corner with Cassie, you know, looking very unhappy.”
Diddy and Cassie together on the red carpet
For around 10 years, Combs had a relationship with the singer Cassie Ventura which ended in 2018.
Once over she filed a lawsuit that both parties eventually settled alleging she was trafficked, raped, drugged and beaten by the rapper on many occasions – which he denied. Last week she made similar claims in court.
A court sketch of Cassie giving evidence against Combs in court this week. Pic: Reuters
A court sketch of Combs listening to evidence from his former partner Cassie. Pic: Reuters
“Cassie looked very glassy-eyed and there was a sadness about her energy. Whatever was happening between the two of them, I mean, it didn’t feel positive,” says DuBois Barnett.
“They were sort of holed up in the corner for almost the entire night… it did feel very different from the kind of jubilant of energy that he projected in his earlier incarnations.”
For Combs, his freedom depends on how these next few weeks go. His representatives claim he is the victim of “a reckless media circus”, saying he categorically denies he sexually abused anyone and wants to prove his innocence.
In particular, they say, he looks forward to establishing the “truth… based on evidence, not speculation”.
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