Originally published at: https://gizadeathstar.com/2024/08/nasas-dart-mission-asteroids-and-kinetic-impact-weapons/
You might recall that we began this week with a blog on Monday about the Chinese plans for a lunar catapult “cargo launcher”, which, as I pointed out, was really a weapons technology that can be used for other “more peaceful” purposes. The principle which I articulated in the blog is worth repeating here, because…
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What if that asteroid / moon belongs to someone? Keep messing around and there may be a ‘Get off my lawn!’ moment coming (Gran Tourino).
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I wonder how they know the density, mass, or internal composition of space objects they’re planning to hit with their “darts.” Wouldn’t that affect the calculations?
Probably similar to the way they tell the elemental content of bodies. Unknown if their sensing of the bodies was passive (energy reflected from other sources - suns, etc) or active (they pulsed it with frequencies of energy…likely microwaves). If active, a dense body will reflect stronger than a rice crispy will.
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Thanks – I had a vague memory from astronomy class (ages ago) that you could tell various things from the light spectrum or energy coming off of celestial bodies, but I couldn’t figure out how that would tell you about the internal structure of an object. Bouncing energy such as microwaves off of it makes sense.