Dewnami t1_irz6ecn wrote on October 12, 2022 at 3:06 AM

Reply to comment by CardNGold in NASA says DART mission succeeded in altering asteroid's trajectory by Gari_305

You know this has always bothered me with deflecting asteroids. We are altering the destiny of the universe. Our deflection could very well be the demise of another civilization.

JackD4wkins t1_irzjjqd wrote on October 12, 2022 at 5:16 AM

This asteroid is locked in orbit around our sun.... it will literally never leave our solar system, and therefore can never threaten a single living thing ever. Hope you can finally stop worrying about this issue now

Bensemus t1_is7q8kl wrote on October 13, 2022 at 10:19 PM

That's only because you don't understand it at all. Look into the mission properly.

DART smashed into a small asteroid that is orbiting a larger one which is orbiting the Sun. The smaller asteroid's orbit was shrunk from ~12h to ~11.5h. It's still gravitationally bound to the larger asteroid which is still gravitationally bound to the Sun. Nothing was really changed. There was never any danger in drastically altering this asteroids orbit and put it on a collision course with Earth.

Saying we altered the destiny of the universe is beyond egotistical.