Asteroids: Treasures of the past and a threat to the future

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The Impact moment on the Don Quijote mission: The Orbiter spacecraft (Sancho) has retreated to a safe distance to observe how the Impactor spacecraft (Hidalgo) crashes into the asteroid. After the Impact Sancho will come closer and inspect the change ...
The Impact moment on the Don Quijote mission: The Orbiter spacecraft (Sancho) has retreated to a safe distance to observe how the Impactor spacecraft (Hidalgo) crashes into the asteroid. After the Impact Sancho will come closer and inspect the changes. Credits: ESA - AOES Medialab

If a large asteroid such as the recently identified 2004 VD17 – about 500 m in diameter with a mass of nearly 1000 million tonnes - collides with the Earth it could spell disaster for much of our planet. As part of ESA's Near-Earth Object deflecting mission Don Quijote, three teams of European industries are now carrying out studies on how to prevent this.


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All News summaries for April 03, 2006

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