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NASA’s mission to deflect asteroid is a step towards preparing the world for a potential future asteroid strike like the one which killed the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago, the chances of which are very slim in our lifetime, Indian scientists said.

In a first-of-its-kind mission, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft successfully crashed into an asteroid on Tuesday to test whether space rocks that might threaten Earth in the future could be nudged safely out of the way.

DART – the world’s first planetary defence technology demonstration — targeted the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, a small body just 160 metres in diameter.

“We are surrounded by several asteroids and comets that orbit our Sun. Very few of them are potentially hazardous to Earth. Hence, It is better to prepare our defenses to avoid such asteroids on a collision course with Earth in the future,” said Chrisphin Karthick, a scientist at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru.

Karthick, who is involved in the DART project, noted that the mission “certainly is a step towards” preparing the world for a potential future event like the one which is believed to have led to the extinction of dinosaurs some 66 million years ago.

“This successful DART mission is an example of that. We now know to precisely aim the spacecraft for such a small body. We can also prepare ourselves for the larger body from the post-impact observations of this DART mission,” Karthick told PTI.

Dimorphos orbits a larger 780-metre asteroid called Didymos. Neither asteroid poses a threat to Earth. By comparison, the dinosaur-killing asteroid that hit Earth was about 10 kilometers in diameter.

The DART mission’s one-way trip, confirmed NASA, can successfully navigate a spacecraft to intentionally collide with an asteroid to deflect it, a technique known as kinetic impact.

Goutam Chattopadhyay, a senior scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in the US also noted that the mission will help to prepare for a future-threatening asteroid.

“DART is an experimental mission to try out a concept of deflecting an asteroid. The idea is, if we can encounter these asteroids whose trajectory is towards us and we do that at a sufficient distance from the Earth, then a minor deflection will be enough to change the path of the asteroid,” he added.

However, scientists noted that most of the asteroids, which are somewhat significant in size and can cause damage on impact with the Earth, have a minuscule chance of hitting the planet.

“However, the probability of that is non-zero and we must always be vigilant. There is always a possibility that a big one might be headed towards us and the question becomes, what would be our approach and how we could mitigate that. That’s why these programs are important,” Chattopadhyay told PTI.

“At least for the next century, there is no such threat from the known asteroids that can cause mass casualties,” said Karthick, adding that this risk assessment is, however, based on the asteroids known to science so far.

Small asteroids are always hitting the Earth all the time but they burn due to the heat generated in the atmosphere. However, for sufficiently large asteroids, that is not the case as the outer core will burn but there will be sufficient mass left to create damage.

The team will now observe Dimorphos using ground-based telescopes to confirm that DART’s impact altered the asteroid’s orbit around Didymos.

Researchers expect the impact to shorten Dimorphos’ orbit by about 1 per cent, or roughly 10 minutes; precisely measuring how much the asteroid was deflected is one of the primary purposes of the full-scale test.

“Post impact, the team will observe Dimorphos using ground-based telescopes to confirm that DART’s impact altered the asteroid’s orbit around Didymos,” Karthick said.

“The expected output of the impact is to shorten Dimorphos’ orbit by about 1 per cent, or roughly 10 minutes. One of the primary goals is to measure the deflection of the asteroid’s orbit,” he added.

However, Chattopadhyay said whether the mission has been able to deflect the orbit of the asteroid will be known only once all the data has been collected.

“I would emphasise that our calculations and small-scale lab experiments show that it might work well,”. he added NASA has a multi prong approach to monitor Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs). The space agency initiated observations program in 1998. Most discoveries are supported by ground-based telescopic surveys, “We primarily use radars and lidars for this. Mostly they are ground-based systems. However, our existing satellites in space are also used to image and track these objects,” the scientist added.

Lidar is a method for determining distance by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected light.

“The DART mission is humanity’s first attempt to alter the trajectory of an asteroid by crashing a human made object into it. Today’s successful impact is a big step forward in that direction.

“However, to know the eventual success of this concept, we have to wait a few more years by when any significant change in the trajectory would be clearly apparent,” said Dibyendu Nandi, space scientist at Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, Kolkata.


Buying an affordable 5G smartphone today usually means you will end up paying a “5G tax”. What does that mean for those looking to get access to 5G networks as soon as they launch? Find out on this week’s episode. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

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New Study Finds Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall Bigger and Nearer Than Thought

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New Study Finds Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall Bigger and Nearer Than Thought

Astronomers have revealed that the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, a massive network of galaxies, might be bigger than they realised. By mapping the cosmos with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs)—the brightest explosions in the universe—astronomers found that this structure is even bigger than previously estimated. Surprisingly, portions of it also lie significantly closer to Earth than previously believed, challenging fundamental assumptions about how the universe is structured and evolves.
This cosmic structure was first observed in 2014 — a dense galaxy forming a filament of a supercluster.

A new study now extends the researchers’ previous work, but with a wider GRB sample. Hakkila and Zsolt Bagoly, authors of the study, have refined the measurements. They detected a number of relatively nearby GRBs in their sample. The evidence also shows the Great Wall is larger and wider than previously predicted.

Gamma-Ray Bursts Expose Structure Too Large for Current Models

According to a Space.com report, the GRBs figure prominently in the early discovery and more recent growth of the Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall. These explosive outbursts — from either collapsing massive stars or colliding neutron stars — produce powerful jets that can be spotted over cosmological distances. Hakkila told the publication that GRBs act as another bright beacon for identifying galaxies, even those too faint to see directly. Because of their brightness, scientists can follow matter throughout the universe more distinctly than ever.

The Great Wall, over 10 billion light-years long, challenges the cosmological principle of uniform universe appearance. Its massive size indicates gaps in current theories and implies that the universe’s formation time was insufficient for such massive structures.

THESEUS May Reveal Full Scale of Cosmic Great Wall

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Burst observations reveal 542 GRB events, but more data is needed to fully understand the Great Wall’s scope due to misidentified origins and sparse sampling. Hakkila points toward the upcoming ESA mission THESEUS — the Transient High Energy Sources and Early Universe Surveyor — as the next major leap.

The mission aims to dramatically expand the catalogue of known GRBs, particularly at extreme distances. “It could finally provide the observational leverage needed to map the Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall to its full extent,” Hakkila told Space.com, emphasising its role in refining our understanding of the universe’s large-scale structure.

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Ancient Greenland Rocks Found in Iceland Sheds Light on Late Antique Ice Age

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Ancient Greenland Rocks Found in Iceland Sheds Light on Late Antique Ice Age

A study published in April 2025 provides new insight into one of the mysterious historical climate change periods known as LALIA (the Late Antique Ice Age). This period is known to last from 536 to 660 AD. The trio of scientists, namely, Christopher Spencer, Ross Mitchell and Thomas Gernon, published in a journal describing the analysis of misplaced Greenland rocks found lodged in the cliffs of Iceland, offering direct evidence of iceberg activity connected to this period of an ice age.

Discovery of the LALIA

The study was published in the journal Geology. As per Phys.org, the earlier research has depicted that the Earth’s northern hemisphere had undergone a chilly spell beginning around 540 AD because of the eruption of huge volcanoes, which led to the rise in debris in the atmosphere, leading to the darkening of the skies. A few historians speculated that the sudden cold weather led the Goths to attack the Romans in Europe, as they moved toward the south, warmer regions led to the fall of the Roman Empire.

Understanding the Misplaced Rocks

The researchers studied some cliffs on the western coast when they noticed that the rocks actually looked out of place. They collected a few rocks to study in the lab. The team crushed the rocks in the lab to study their remnants under a microscope. They pulled the zircon crystals from the centre of these rocks.

In their lab, the team crushed the rocks and looked at their remnants under a microscope, allowing them to pull out zircon crystals from their centres. These crystals can be used as a time capsule. After studying their age and composition, the scientists could trace the original place of these rocks across Greenland. This predicts that these rocks were moved by someone more than 1500 years ago.

The scientists studied the rocks’ age placed at the LALIA, depicting that the rocks were moved after breaking the ice from the large glaciers of Greenland that formed as per the colder scenarios formed during that period.

Scope of the Study

The research stands as a major step forward in understanding the Earth’s climate in the past. These rocks have given clear proof of increased glacial activity at the time of LALIA, indicating the outcomes of modern and future climatic changes.

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SpaceX Sends Europe’s First Reentry Capsule into Orbit on Bandwagon-3 Rideshare Mission

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SpaceX Sends Europe’s First Reentry Capsule into Orbit on Bandwagon-3 Rideshare Mission

A Falcon 9 rocket soared into space from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on April 21 at 8:48 p.m. EDT (0048 GMT, April 22), carrying multiple payloads on SpaceX’s latest rideshare mission, Bandwagon-3. Among the diverse cargo onboard was Phoenix 1, a European-built reentry capsule developed by the German company Atmos Space Cargo. History will be made here in European aerospace with this launch, as Phoenix 1 becomes the first capsule from Europe intending to return from space and splash down on Earth after just one orbit, barely 1,200 miles offshore of Brazil.

Phoenix 1 Debuts as Europe’s First Private Reentry Capsule on SpaceX Bandwagon-3 Flight

According to Atmos Space Cargo, this mission is the first-ever atmospheric reentry attempt of a European private entity. Phoenix 1 is meant to test out essential technologies, including the company’s inflatable heat shield needed to return high-value cargo from space safely, the company noted. “Our mission is to revolutionise space logistics by enabling groundbreaking advancements in microgravity research, in-orbit manufacturing, defence applications, and life sciences,” says the firm’s website. The successful reentry and splashdown will support future commercial applications across these sectors.

Phoenix 1 shared the ride with several other payloads, including 425Sat-3, operated by South Korea’s Agency for Defence Development, and Tomorrow-S7, a weather satellite from the meteorological technology company Tomorrow Companies Inc. These collaborative launches are part of SpaceX’s growing commitment to enabling diverse and cost-effective access to low Earth orbits via its ridesharing programs. The Bandwagon missions, which began in April 2024 and continued with a second flight in December that year, operate alongside the long-established Transporter series, which has completed 13 missions since 2021.

Phoenix 1 Marks Shift Toward Scalable Reentry Missions in European Space Logistics

While the Transporter program is known for launching a large number of satellites—including a record-breaking 143 on a single flight in January 2021—the Bandwagon series focuses on smaller, more flexible ridesharing configurations. The dispatch of Phoenix 1 on Bandwagon 3 is the latest sign of a trend toward greater mission flexibility to develop and operate bespoke space technologies in support of different kinds of space exploration and logistics, and yet another indication of commercial innovation extending the boundaries of the possible in space.

A successful test flight of Phoenix 1 would have significant ramifications for European space companies, being positioned as proof of the Phoenix program—demonstrating mission-critical capabilities regarding return flights and retrofitting, while being the seed for a scalable reaping capability for research institutions and commercial entities.

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