A deflection mission aims to change an asteroid's path enough that it misses Earth. Given sufficient warning, even a small velocity change can accumulate into a substantial difference in position by the time of a possible encounter.
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12:03>> Yeah. >> in in I guess diameter. >> Yeah. >> Um it's it's not a super large object. >> No, no, no. >> And the >> like the size of a house. the force and the impact uh and the thousand because the devastation is was pretty severe. Yeah. >> Right. So in any event, >> so our best strategy when it comes to planetary defense is actually to nudge it. We want to give it some momentum and then we want to get out of the way and hopefully that thing gets out of the way, right? Because we've nudged it and it just avoids Earth. It keeps going around the sun but now it's orbit has changed a little bit.
AstrophysicsOrbital MechanicsPlanetary DefensePrecision Measurement