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A spacecraft that must ultimately crash in order to succeed lifted off late on Tuesday from California on a Nasa mission to demonstrate the world’s first planetary defence system.

Carried aboard a SpaceX-owned Falcon 9 rocket, the Dart (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft soared into the sky at 10.21pm Pacific time from the Vandenberg US Space Force Base, about 150 miles (240km) north-west of Los Angeles.

The plan is to crash the robot spacecraft into the moonlet Dimorphos at 15,000mph (24,100km/h) and change its path by a fraction. If the mission is successful, it will mean that Nasa and other space agencies could deflect an asteroid heading towards Earth and avert an Armageddon-style impact.

The Dart payload, about the size of a small car, was released from the booster minutes after launch to begin its 10-month journey into deep space, some 6.8 million miles (11 km) from Earth.

Once there Dart will test its ability to alter an asteroid’s trajectory with sheer kinetic force. Cameras mounted on the impactor and on a briefcase-sized mini-spacecraft to be released from Dart about 10 days beforehand will record the collision and beam images of it back to Earth.

The asteroid being targeted by Dart poses no actual threat and is tiny compared with the cataclysmic Chicxulub asteroid that struck Earth 66m years ago, leading to extinction of the dinosaurs. But scientists say smaller asteroids are far more common and pose a greater theoretical danger in the near term.

The team behind Dart chose the Didymos system because its relative proximity to Earth and dual-asteroid configuration make it ideal for observing the results of the impact.

The blast-off was shown live on Nasa TV and on the SpaceX Twitter account.

It is the latest of several Nasa missions in recent years to explore and interact with asteroids, primordial rocky remnants from the solar system’s formation 4.6bn years ago.

Last month, Nasa launched a probe on a voyage to the Trojan asteroid clusters orbiting near Jupiter, while the grab-and-go spacecraft Osires-Rex is on its way back to Earth with a sample collected in October last year from the asteroid Bennu.

The Dimorphos moonlet is one of the smallest astronomical objects to receive a permanent name and is one of 27,500 known near-Earth asteroids of all sizes tracked by Nasa.

Nasa has put the entire cost of the Dart project at $330m, well below that of many of the space agency’s most ambitious science missions.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/nov/24/nasa-launches-dart-mission-to-deflect-asteroid-in-planetary-defence-test

MRTA7:
It wasn’t going to change overnight with the same coaching staff.

donstan18:
ManU will sack him, but it won’t solve anything.

MorataFC:
in a nutshell, u are saying a better team made him and he can't make a team better.

donstan18:
Nawa for some ManU fans, how do you even expect Ole not to be sacked after this Watford match? lol

Oasis007:
Internal talks ongoing at Manchester United to discuss Ole Gunnar Solskjær position. Part of the board/officials pushing to sack the manager immediately. It’s a serious possibility now - after terrible performance at Vicarage.

Final choice will be up to Joel Glazer.

- Fabrizio Romano

donstan18:
They finished second last season.

Finished team can’t achieve that.

donstan18:
Do you know why? Because Ronaldo joined them.

This is clear for any honest ManU fan to see.

Leyqute:

donstan18:
Where are those players now? How are they performing? What happened? Who came in? What changed?

donstan18:
Pep will never build his team around an old man.

donstan18:
Since Ferguson left, Ole has been the only manager who has consistently made top4 in all the seasons he started.

What changed? Ronaldo’s presence.

They’ll sake Ole, but ManU’s problem won’t end if they don’t appoint a strict manager who’ll bench Ronaldo.

donstan18:
They are building the attack around him.

Same wey he limited Benzema, now look at Benzema after he left.

Same way he limited Dybala and some Juve strikers, now look at Dybala and other players scoring and dropping collective performances.

Now he’s ruining Greenwood and Bruno, Greenwood wey dey hot, dey develop with fire don suddenly turn to Martial 2.0.

How about Bruno? This guy was smashing the net until the tapin merchant arrived.

Smh!

fawaz050:
You're totally wrong!!

Chelsea have conceded 8.8 shots per game this season only Liverpool and city have conceded fewer.

Chelsea is boring?. Which club is playing better football? You can't mention three teams without naming chelsea.

I like when people state facts as they are, and I don't argue in face of the Truth.

But, chelsea has been really fun to watch. Even The defenders have been exciting.

richmanrichard:
united wud neva loose this game. we opposition fans wants ole to stay