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NASA’s DART spacecraft has crashed into Dimorphos, with the loss of signal occurring today at exactly 7:14 p.m. ET as expected. Scientists will now pore over the data to see if the kinetic impactor altered the asteroid’s orbital trajectory.
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Lego has pulled back the curtain on its latest Star Wars set, and it’s one that will keep you occupied for a while. It’s a 72 cm-long version of the Razor Crest from the Disney+ show The Mandalorian. While there was already a 1,000-piece version of Din Djarin’s ship, this one has 6,187 pieces.
The set, which is part of the Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series, features removable engines, along with a cockpit, escape pod and a carbon-freezing chamber that’s just the right size for a minifigure. Speaking of which, minifigures of Grogu, the Mandalorian, Mythrol and Kuiil (who can be placed on a buildable Blurrg model) come with the set. You can display the figures on a stand that includes an information plaque.
The model, which is 50 cm wide and 24 cm tall, costs $600. Lego VIP members can snap it up on October 3rd. Everyone else will have a shot at buying the Razor Crest set on October 7th at Lego’s website and stores.
Building the set could help fans of The Mandalorian pass some time until the show returns. The third season is slated to hit Disney+ in February 2023.
The cockpit, the escape pod, the carbon-freezing chamber, the engines… witness the power of the force as LEGO® bricks connect to create the Ultimate Collector Series version of The Razor Crest, ready for The Mandalorian and Grogu’s next mission. #LEGO#StarWars#LEGOStarWarspic.twitter.com/X2DTGPb8Dz
— LEGO (@LEGO_Group) September 26, 2022
After nearly a year in transit, NASA’s experimental Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which sought to answer the questions, “Could you potentially shove a asteroid off its planet-killing trajectory by hitting it with a specially designed satellite? How about several?” has successfully collided with the Dimorphos asteroid. Results and data from the collision are still coming in but NASA ground control confirms that the DART impact vehicle has intercepted the target asteroid. Yes, granted, Dimorphos is roughly the size of an American football stadium but space is both very large and very dark, and both asteroid and spacecraft were moving quite fast at the time.
“It’s been a successful completion of the first part of the world’s first planetary defense test,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said after the impact. “I believe it’s going to teach us how one day to protect our own planet from an incoming asteroid. We are showing that planetary defense is a global endeavor and it is very possible to save our planet.”
NASA launched the DART mission in November, 2021 in an effort to explore the use of defensive satellites as a means of planetary defense against Near Earth Objects. The vending machine-sized DART impactor vehicle was travelling at roughly 14,000 MPH when it fatally crossed Dimorphos’ path nearly 68 million miles away from Earth.
Whether future iterations of a planetary defense system brimming with satellites willing to go all June Bug vs Chrysler Windshield against true planet-killer asteroids remains to be seen. Dimorphos itself is the smaller of a pair of gravitationally-entangled asteroids — its parent rock is more than five times as large — but both are dwarfed by the space rock that hit Earth 66 million years ago, wiping out 75 percent of multicellular life on the planet while gouging out the Gulf of Mexico.
The DART team will likely be poring over the data generated by both the impactor and cameras released before the spacecraft made its final approach for days to come. However the team will consider shortening the orbital track of Dimorphos around Didymos by 10 minutes an ideal outcome, though any change of at least 73 seconds will still be hailed as a rousing success. The team will have to observe Dimorphos’ orbit for half a day to confirm their success, as the moonlet needs nearly 12 hours to complete an circuit around Didymos.
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