NASA has successfully smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid seven million miles from Earth.
The last image from the “vending machine-sized” collider showed the surface of the asteroid Dimorphos seconds before impact.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is the first-ever trial of a “planetary defence system”.
If the orbit of an asteroid can be changed by an object sent into space, humanity may have a chance at protecting itself from the kind of disaster that did it for the dinosaurs.
NASA, and the international team of astronomers working with them, chose their target carefully. To prove success, they needed an asteroid they can carefully monitor following the collision. They also needed to make sure any impact wouldn’t send a previously harmless piece of rock spiralling towards Earth.
They picked a pair of asteroids: the 780 metre-wide Didymos, and its moon Dimorphos which is 160m wide – about the size of the Great Pyramid.
Because Dimorphos is already safely orbiting its bigger partner, they can study the change in its behaviour following the collision.
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Dimorphos is also a fairly common size of asteroid. While significantly smaller than a kilometres-wide “planet killer”, it’s of a type easily big enough to destroy a city.
“What Dart is going up there to prove is that we actually do have a system for kinetic deflection, nudging these away and nudging them off course,” says Betsy Congdon, DART’s mechanical systems engineer at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.
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If you’ve seen Hollywood disaster movies Deep Impact, Armageddon or more recently Don’t Look Up, prepare yourself for mild disappointment.
Despite smashing a half-tonne spacecraft into Dimorphos at close to 15,000 miles an hour, the effect on the asteroid is expected to be tiny – checking its speed by just 0.4mm per second.
But over time, that should have a measurable effect on its orbit. An array of land and space-based telescopes including NASA and ESA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, will all study the asteroid to measure the outcome of the test.
Although it’s only a modest objective, the engineering involved was a major undertaking. Didymos is far too small and far away for DART to be steered into it from Earth. The probe had to use an autonomous guidance system to target the asteroid which is so small it was only visible in DART’s cameras about 50 minutes before impact. But the sat-nav seems to have worked perfectly.
The hope is, that a tiny nudge might be enough – if the impact is sufficiently far away – to deflect a future asteroid on collision course with Earth off target.
Astronomers estimate they have tracked the orbits of 95% of asteroids large enough to destroy life on Earth and none is currently on a collision course. But there are many smaller ones. According to NASA, no known asteroid larger than 140m across is likely to hit Earth in the next 100 years. But they think they’ve only found about 40% of them.
Around 66 million years ago a 10km-wide asteroid slammed into what is now the Yucatan Peninsular of Mexico. It left a crater 110 miles wide and 12 miles deep. The resulting change in the planet’s climate is thought to have caused the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event. The impact wiped out 75% of animal and plant species on Earth – and famously ended the reign of flightless dinosaurs.
But even small space rocks can lead to a bad day on Earth. In 2013 a 20m-wide asteroid exploded as a meteorite over the city of Chelyabinsk in the Ural region of Russia. The blast was equivalent to 500 tonnes of TNT, about a third of the force of the Hiroshima bomb. While no deaths were reported there were more than 1,400 casualties, some of them serious.
“An asteroid impact is the one kind of natural disaster that we could potentially see coming decades away,” says Prof Colin Snodgrass at the University of Edinburgh is a member of the DART team.
He’s helped set up a telescope in Kenya to monitor the impact from Earth. “If one [the size of Dimorphos] was ever discovered coming towards earth being able to do something about that seems like a very sensible technology to have.”
A pilot on board the cargo ship that crashed into the Baltimore bridge tried to swing it clear of a collision by dropping its port anchor to pivot it away, authorities said.
The pilot and a second on board at the time of collision will be interviewed by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) today.
The US Coast Guard also confirmed that the container ship’s engines had undergone routine maintenance while in the Baltimore port.
Information recovered from the ship’s voyage data recorder (VDR) showed power failed for just one minute and three seconds as it approached the structure, but that was enough for the collision to become seemingly unavoidable .
The recorder, which officials noted is “very basic” when compared to those on aircraft, stopped picking up sensor data during the outage but did record audio of the pilot giving steering commands and rudder orders and had enough information to create a timeline leading up to impact:
00:39:00 VDR recorded ship’s departure from Seagirt Marine Terminal 01:07 ship had entered the Fort McHenry Channel 01:24 ship was on a heading underway on a true heading of approx 141 degrees at a speed of 8 knots / 9.2mph 01:24:59 Numerous audible alarms recorded on ships bridge audio – at same time, the VDR stopped recording sensor data, but continued to record audio using redundant power source 01:26:02 VDR sensor data recording resumed. Steering commands and rudder orders were recorded on the audio during this time 01:26:39 Pilot made general VHF call for tugs in the vicinity to assist. At the same time, the power of association dispatcher phoned the Maryland Transport Authority (MDTA) duty officer regarding the blackout 01:27:04 Pilot ordered the DALI to drop the port anchor and ordered additional steering commands 01:27:25 Pilot issued a radio call over the VHF radio reporting the DALI had lost all power and was heading towards the bridge. Around this time MDTA data shows the following also occurred: the duty officer radioed to their units that were already on scene due to construction on the bridge – one on each side of the bridge – and ordered them to close the traffic on the bridge. All lanes were then shut down by MDTA 01:29:00 ship’s speed was just under 7 knots / 8pmh and from 0129:00 to 01:29:33 the ship’s audio recorded the collision of the bridge 01:29:39 Pilot reported the bridge down over the audio to the coast guard
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An official also said that the Key Bridge was fracture-critical, which means “if a member fails that would likely cause a portion of, or the entire bridge, to collapse, there’s no redundancy”.
NTSB board chair Jennifer Homendy also noted that according to the Federal Highway Administration, there are close to 17,500 fracture-critical bridges in the US.
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She added: “It’s pretty devastating, certainly, seeing not just what’s going on with the cargo containers, but just looking at what was a bridge span – three bridge spans that is pretty much gone. It’s just utter devastation.”
The men recovered have been identified as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, who was from Mexico and lived in Baltimore, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, who was from Guatemala and lived in Dundalk, Maryland.
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Earlier on Wednesday, the first two missing construction workers were named as Miguel Luna, a 49-year-old from El Salvador, and Maynard Sandoval, a 37-year-old father-of-two. Two other people are also still missing – all are presumed dead.
The recovery mission is now a salvage operation as it is no longer safe for divers to navigate or operate around the debris and concrete in the port.
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3:00
Baltimore: Second missing man named
The victims, who were from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, were part of a crew filling potholes on the bridge’s road surface at the time of the collapse.
The Key Bridge carried the Interstate 695 highway over the Patapsco River southeast of the Baltimore metropolitan area.
US President Joe Biden has promised that he will visit Baltimore “as soon as possible”, adding that the federal government will cover the “full cost” of rebuilding the bridge – which experts say could be over $600m (£474m).
Its main section spanned 1,200 feet and was one of the longest continuous truss bridges in the world upon its completion, according to the National Steel Bridge Alliance.
The Dali was previously involved in a minor incident when it hit a quay at the Port of Antwerp in Belgium in 2016, where it was damaged, according to Vessel Finder and maritime accident site Shipwrecklog.
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Audio has emerged of a first responder call as officials halted traffic on both sides of the Francis Scott Key Bridge moments before it collapsed.
The cargo ship had issued a mayday call to alert authorities it had lost power before it collided with the Baltimore bridge on Tuesday morning.
Following the call, Maryland Transportation Authority Police Dispatch and Response officials acted swiftly, shutting down the north and south sides of the bridge.
In the audio, one official instructs: “Hold all traffic on the Key Bridge… There’s a ship approaching that just lost their steering so until we get that under control, we’ve got to stop all traffic.
“Make sure no one’s on the bridge right now. There’s a crew up there… You might want to notify the foreman to see if we can get them off the bridge temporarily.”
Another responds saying he would “grab the workers” but it was too late.
A second later, a voice is heard saying: “The whole bridge just fell down. Start, start whoever… everybody. The whole bridge just collapsed.”
In other developments, investigators at the National Safety Transportation Board have confirmed that the cargo ship’s data recorder has now been recovered – and they are examining whether contaminated fuel played a role in the crash.
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0:30
New angle shows moment bridge hit
The Dali ship ploughed into one of the bridge’s supports and, in an instant, the 1.6-mile-long structure had fallen into the Patapsco River, along with vehicles and workers who were on it at the time.
Six workers missing after the collapse are presumed dead, the executive vice president of Brawner Builders has confirmed.
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Officials say the rescue mission for the group has now become a recovery operation.
It comes as Miguel Luna, from El Salvador, was named as one of the six people on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed.
All 22 crew members on board the ship, including the two pilots, have been accounted for and there were no reports of injuries.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore said he spoke to the families of the victims, assuring them since the mission had transitioned from search and rescue to recovery he would “put every possible resource to bring [them] a sense of closure”.
He praised the “true heroism” of the first responders who “saved countless lives that night”.
Mr Moore also said he was “overwhelmed” by the amount of support from both the Democratic and Republican parties as he stressed the importance of getting the bridge rebuilt.
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1:20
‘True accountability’ for Baltimore bridge collapse
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has promised that he will visit Baltimore “as soon as possible”, adding that the federal government will cover the “full cost” of rebuilding the bridge – which experts say could be over $600m (£474m).
He told reporters: “Everything so far indicates that this was a terrible accident. At this time we have no other indication, no other reason to believe there’s any intentional act here.
“Personnel on board the ship were able to alert the Maryland Department of Transportation that they had lost control of their vessel.”
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0:59
Timeline of Baltimore bridge collapse
Mr Biden added that this meant local authorities were able to close the bridge before it was struck, which “undoubtedly saved lives”.
He continued: “Our prayers are with everyone involved in this terrible accident and all the families [affected], especially those waiting for news of their loved one right now. I know every minute in that circumstance feels like a lifetime.”
The Key Bridge carries the Interstate 695 highway over the Patapsco River southeast of the Baltimore metropolitan area.
Its main section spans 1,200 feet and was one of the longest continuous truss bridges in the world upon its completion, according to the National Steel Bridge Alliance.
The Dali was previously involved in a minor incident when it hit a quay at the Port of Antwerp in Belgium in 2016, where it was damaged, according to Vessel Finder and maritime accident site Shipwrecklog.
Audio has emerged of a first responder call as officials halted traffic on both sides of the Francis Scott Key Bridge moments before it collapsed.
The cargo ship had issued a mayday call to alert authorities it had lost power before it collided with the Baltimore bridge on Tuesday morning.
Following the call, Maryland Transportation Authority Police Dispatch and Response officials acted swiftly, shutting down the north and south sides of the bridge.
In the audio, one official instructs: “Hold all traffic on the Key Bridge… There’s a ship approaching that just lost their steering so until we get that under control, we’ve got to stop all traffic.
“Make sure no one’s on the bridge right now. There’s a crew up there… You might want to notify the foreman to see if we can get them off the bridge temporarily.”
Another responds saying he would “grab the workers” but it was too late.
A second later, a voice is heard saying: “The whole bridge just fell down. Start, start whoever… everybody. The whole bridge just collapsed.”
In other developments, investigators at the National Safety Transportation Board have confirmed that the cargo ship’s data recorder has now been recovered – and they are examining whether contaminated fuel played a role in the crash.
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0:30
New angle shows moment bridge hit
The Dali ship ploughed into one of the bridge’s supports and, in an instant, the 1.6-mile-long structure had fallen into the Patapsco River, along with vehicles and workers who were on it at the time.
Six workers missing after the collapse are presumed dead, the executive vice president of Brawner Builders has confirmed.
Officials say the rescue mission for the group has now become a recovery operation.
It comes as Miguel Luna, from El Salvador, was named as one of the six people on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed.
All 22 crew members on board the ship, including the two pilots, have been accounted for and there were no reports of injuries.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has promised that he will visit Baltimore “as soon as possible”, adding that the federal government will cover the “full cost” of rebuilding the bridge – which experts say could be over $600m (£474m).
He told reporters: “Everything so far indicates that this was a terrible accident. At this time we have no other indication, no other reason to believe there’s any intentional act here.
“Personnel on board the ship were able to alert the Maryland Department of Transportation that they had lost control of their vessel.”
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0:59
Timeline of Baltimore bridge collapse
Mr Biden added that this meant local authorities were able to close the bridge before it was struck, which “undoubtedly saved lives”.
He continued: “Our prayers are with everyone involved in this terrible accident and all the families [affected], especially those waiting for news of their loved one right now. I know every minute in that circumstance feels like a lifetime.”
The Key Bridge carries the Interstate 695 highway over the Patapsco River southeast of the Baltimore metropolitan area.
Its main section spans 1,200 feet and was one of the longest continuous truss bridges in the world upon its completion, according to the National Steel Bridge Alliance.
The Dali was previously involved in a minor incident when it hit a quay at the Port of Antwerp in Belgium in 2016, where it was damaged, according to Vessel Finder and maritime accident site Shipwrecklog.