Tailless comets could threaten Earth
But they also offer an explanation of the solar system’s earliest days
NASA’s DART mission was an impressive success. On September 26th, using a probe weighing 600kg, it hit Dimorphos, an asteroid 160 metres across that was, at the time, 11m kilometres away from Earth. The purpose was to determine whether asteroids which might otherwise strike Earth could have their paths altered by what is, in effect, a game of cosmic billiards. Though the results are not yet in, it seems likely that they could.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Tailless comets could threaten Earth”
From the October 8th 2022 edition
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