Bam! Bullseye! Target engaged!

[reACTIONary]

... On its target and closing in. About 15 minutes to impact!

https://dart.jhuapl.edu/

[Hermit-The-Prog]

1. It's going to ignite the atmosphere!!!

Well, maybe not.

[reACTIONary]

2. Oh Nos!!?!

[Hermit-The-Prog]

3. Spending the last moments of the universe staring at a youtube feed from NASA. :D

[reACTIONary]

4. What a way to go!

[Hermit-The-Prog]

5. Wow! Skimmed by the big one and hit the little one dead center!

Damned fine shooting. Katherine Johnson would be proud.

[reACTIONary]

7. +100 nt

[petronius]

6. Nice closeup of some pavement there at the end! Had that view myself a time or two,

but for less noble reasons...

[Hermit-The-Prog]

8. I bet NASA studies those images for a while.

[HAB911]

9. Science Magic

[doc03]

10. I assume it was not going to hit earth, so what if they alter its course

to directly hit NY City. I hope it is not big enough to cause serious damage. Do we send Bruce Willis then?

[Hermit-The-Prog]

11. It's been redirected to Mar-A-Lago. No harm to sentient beings.

[doc03]

12. Good point nt

[Nevilledog]

13. Two thoughts I had while watching live:

1. Wait, is that a house and little people running around?

2. Great, we just registered on the Borg radars.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

16. Mine: Never play darts against NASA.

[Hortensis]

22. That's for sure. Not even from 7M miles away. :)

[Hermit-The-Prog]

24. I won't say they cheat, but they are damned good at it! ...

BTW, hat tip to


Don't think we'd be at this moment without her paving the way.

[Hortensis]

32. :) Suspiciously good. She and her contributions were remarkable, all right.

[Nevilledog]

23. Just saw this...lol

Link to tweet

[Hermit-The-Prog]

27. LOL -- NASA got the tenth!

[Leith]

17. No no, not the Borg

They're still in the Delta Quadrant.

But there is a small ship on a survey mission traveling through our solar system. They will take note and want to meet the people who made this happen. Too bad it isn't April 5th.*


* Sorry. A very small joke for hardcore Star Trek fans.

[Nevilledog]

19. ...

v

[Leith]

25. And I just understood yours

I love that moment in the movie.

But not everybody watches or has watched Star Trek. To explain the reference from my last post:

When a scientist named Zephram Cochran flew (will fly?) the first spacecraft that go achieve warp speed, it was (will be - can we get some verb tenses that will indicate future events as being in the past please?! ) April 5th, 2047. The survey ship traveling through our solar system is a spoiler in case you want to see the movie First Contact. However, I will tell you that they did not like Roy Orbison's Ooby Dooby.

Edited to add! Yes, the Borg were/will be involved. But they cheated to do it.

[Nevilledog]

28. Just recently rewatched ALL the Star Trek movies

Do that about once a year.


The Voyage Home will always be my favorite.

[Leith]

33. One of mine, too

It still cracks me up that an obvious Russian asks a cop where he can find nuclear wessels in 1986.

It's even better that the people on the street that they talk to aren't actors. The "in Alameda" lady was just walking by. The cop was a real San Francisco cop. The death stare was hilarious!

[reACTIONary]

41. Will have flown... Will have been. There will be no text.

[lindysalsagal]

39. Resistance is futile.

Can't believe I was the first....

[onenote]

14. Amazing how we take for granted our ability to see live video from 7 million miles away.

[reACTIONary]

21. Kilometers. But...

....who's counting?

[onenote]

26. Actually, I read it is around 11 million kilometers away -- which is nearly 7 million miles.

[reACTIONary]

30. I thought I read 7 million km. But...

... the distance varies depending on where in the orbit we and it is. So maybe I we are both in range. I'll have to check.

[onenote]

36. From Reuters:

The livestream showed images taken by DART's own camera as the cube-shaped "impactor" vehicle, no bigger than a vending machine with two rectangular solar arrays, streaked into the asteroid Dimorphos, about the size of a football stadium, at around 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) some 6.8 million miles (11 million km) from Earth.

https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/nasas-asteroid-deflecting-dart-spacecraft-nears-planned-impact-with-its-target-2022-09-26/

[reACTIONary]

37. You are right. I checked my source...

... the 7 million km was the last closest approach, not the current distance.

[Hortensis]

34. Lol, amazing it is!

[dweller]

18. Did anyone else just feel

a ripple in the force ?
Or was it just me …
🤔



✌🏻

[Hermit-The-Prog]

35. Just a shock wave from return fire. They missed us.

[Princess Turandot]

20. #AvengeTheDinosaurs 🦕

Best hashtag in recent memory!

#AvengeTheDinosaurs🦕

[Nevilledog]

29. Perfection!

[Hermit-The-Prog]

31. Love it!

[lindysalsagal]

38. This is so star trek!!!!

Wow!

[erronis]

40. Can you imagine if the on-board computer had a bit of sentience and knew that it was destined...

EOL

[reACTIONary]

44. It was programmed...

... To be devoted to it's mission.

Unlike MESSENGER...

[erronis]

49. That's great. Thanks for a poignant smile this morning.

[Orrex]

42. Did anyone ask the asteroid's permission first?

Did we learn nothing from bombing the moon?!?

[Beartracks]

43. Is the little one a piece of the big one?

I haven't followed this too closely... I heard we were hitting a meteor, but was it sort of a "sub-meteor" alongside the "main meteor"?

===========

[reACTIONary]

45. It is a binary asteroid system...

... the little one orbits the larger one as a moon. Until now, we have never really seen the little one. It was only known through the periodic dimming of the larger one as the smaller one "eclipsed" it. There has never been enough information to decide if the moon is a fragment or if it was captured by the larger one as it flew by.

[reACTIONary]

46. Also, just to be technical...

... asteroids aren't called meteors unless they enter earth's atmosphere.

[Beartracks]

47. Ah, I knew that. Just grabbed the wrong word in my post!

Well, that was embarrassing...



============

[Justice matters.]

48. Send one where putler hides NASA ;)

Awesome technology!

[kentuck]

50. Wonder what Putin thought of that shot??

7 million miles away.

The first chair at his breakfast table at his chateau by the Black Sea?