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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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Watch Neuralink’s First Brain-Chip Patient Playing Chess Using His Mind

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Watch Neuralink's First Brain-Chip Patient Playing Chess Using His Mind

Elon Musk’s brain-chip startup Neuralink livestreamed on Wednesday its first patient implanted with a chip using his mind to play online chess.

Noland Arbaugh, the 29-year-old patient who was paralyzed below the shoulder after a diving accident, played chess on his laptop and moved the cursor using the Neuralink device. The implant seeks to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using only their thoughts.

Arbaugh had received an implant from the company in January and could control a computer mouse using his thoughts, Musk said last month.

“The surgery was super easy,” Arbaugh said in the video streamed on Musk’s social media platform X, referring to the implant procedure. “I literally was released from the hospital a day later. I have no cognitive impairments.

“I had basically given up playing that game,” Arbaugh said, referring to the game Civilization VI, “you all (Neuralink) gave me the ability to do that again and played for 8 hours straight.”

Elaborating on his experience with the new technology, Arbaugh said that it is “not perfect” and they “have run into some issues.”

“I don’t want people to think that this is the end of the journey, there’s still a lot of work to be done, but it has already changed my life,” he added.

Kip Ludwig, former program director for neural engineering at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, said what Neuralink showed was not a “breakthrough.”

“It is still in the very early days post-implantation, and there is a lot of learning on both the Neuralink side and the subject’s side to maximize the amount of information for control that can be achieved,” he added.

Even so, Ludwig said it was a positive development for the patient that they have been able to interface with a computer in a way they were not able to before the implant. “It’s certainly a good starting point,” he said.

Last month, Reuters reported that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspectors found problems with record keeping and quality controls for animal experiments at Elon Musk’s Neuralink, less than a month after the startup said it was cleared to test its brain implants in humans. Neuralink did not respond then to questions about the FDA’s inspection.

© Thomson Reuters 2024


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Government Eases Approval Process for FDI in Space Sector

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Government Eases Approval Process for FDI in Space Sector

India will allow 100% foreign direct investment in the manufacture of satellite systems without official approval and eased the rules for launch vehicles, a government statement said, aiming for a greater share of the global space market.

India’s space ambitions got a boost when it became the first country to land a spacecraft near the unexplored south pole of the moon in August – and the fourth to achieve a soft landing – just days after a similar Russian mission failed.

The government said in a statement late on Wednesday that foreign companies could invest in the manufacture of components and systems or sub-systems for satellites up to 100% without approval.

Foreign firms planning to build satellites in India would not require government approval up to 74% of the investment; for investment in launch vehicles, investment could go up to 49% without such approval, the statement said.

India has privatised space launches and is aiming for a five-fold increase in its share of the global launch market, which some expect to be worth $47.3 billion by 2032. India currently accounts for about 2% of the space economy.

The country hopes that liberalised rules for the space sector, long controlled by the government, will draw interest from Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, among others.

The foreign direct investment policy reform is expected to boost employment and will allow companies to set up manufacturing facilities in India, the government said in the statement.

“This will give India access to the latest tech advances and much-needed funds, not only from the country but from international investors too,” said A.K. Bhatt, director general of the Indian Space Association.

Space-related India stocks such as Paras Defence and Space Technologies , MTAR Technologies, Taneja Aerospace and Aviation and Apollo Micro Systems climbed 2% to 5% on Thursday.

© Thomson Reuters 2024


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Neuralink Switches Location From Delaware to Nevada

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Neuralink Switches Location From Delaware to Nevada

Elon Musk‘s brain-chip implant company, Neuralink, changed its location of incorporation from Delaware to Nevada, according to the business portals of both states.

The development comes about a week after Musk said Tesla would hold a shareholder vote to transfer its state of incorporation to Texas from Delaware after a judge invalidated his $56 billion (roughly Rs. 4,64,880 crore) pay package.

However, switching the state of incorporation for Tesla could come with hurdles such as investor lawsuits, particularly if it was seen as a move to secure his pay package, legal experts said.

Musk said last week that Neuralink had implanted its first brain chip in a human patient, who was recovering well after the procedure.

Neuralink did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

In September 2023, the company received approval from an independent review board to begin recruitment for the first human trial of its brain implant for paralysis patients.

Those with paralysis due to cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis may qualify for the study, it said but did not reveal how many participants would be enrolled in the trial, which will take about six years to complete.

The study will use a robot to surgically place a brain-computer interface (BCI) implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move, Neuralink said, adding that its initial goal is to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone.

© Thomson Reuters 2024


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