SpaceX to give SoCal residents evening lightshow on Tuesday, Nov. 23

Southland residents could get an awesome pre-holiday aerial airy amusement Tuesday night, Nov. 23, erstwhile SpaceX attempts to motorboat a NASA planetary-defense ngo from Vandenberg Air Force Base, adjacent Lompoc, on the California cardinal coast.

Depending connected visibility, night-time rocket launches from Vandenberg tin often make dazzling airy spectacles that tin beryllium seen crossed overmuch of Southern California. SpaceX launches tin beryllium peculiarly impressive, since the Hawthorne aerospace institution pilots the archetypal signifier of its Falcon 9 rockets backmost to Earth pursuing separation from the spacecraft being sent into space.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to motorboat astatine 10:21 p.m. Tuesday, opening NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, oregon DART, mission.

The mission, sounding similar a Hollywood movie plot, volition intentionally clang a spacecraft into an asteroid to find if specified arsenic effort tin successfully alteration the asteroid’s course.

The thought is to trial the exertion to spot if it could redirect a aboriginal asteroid that mightiness beryllium connected a collision people with Earth.

“While nary known asteroid larger than 140 meters successful size has a important accidental to deed Earth for the adjacent 100 years,” according to NASA’s ngo website, “only astir 40% of those asteroids person been recovered arsenic of October 2021.”

The DART spacecraft volition people an asteroid known arsenic Didymos, which is orbiting a larger asteroid called Dimorphos. Didymos is really considered a “moonlet” and is astir 160 meters successful size, according to NASA.

If each goes to plan, the DART spacecraft volition slam into Didymos successful September astatine a velocity of astir 14,700 mph.

“The collision volition alteration the velocity of the moonlet successful its orbit astir the main assemblage by a fraction of 1 percent,” according to NASA, “but this volition alteration the orbital play of the moonlet by respective minutes — capable to beryllium observed and measured utilizing telescopes connected Earth.”

Dimorphos and Didymos airs nary menace to Earth, and are being targeted solely arsenic a trial ngo of the redirection technology. The planned interaction by the spacecraft volition hap an estimated 6.8 cardinal miles from Earth.

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