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NASA crashes spacecraft into asteroid, passing planetary defense test

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NASA crashes spacecraft into asteroid, passing planetary defense test


LAUREL, Md. — NASA managed Monday to crash a small spacecraft straight into an asteroid, a 14,000-mile-per-hour collision designed to check whether or not such a expertise might sometime be deployed to guard Earth from a probably catastrophic influence.

The violent finish of the Double Asteroid Redirection Check (DART) spacecraft thrilled scientists and engineers on the Johns Hopkins College Utilized Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., which operated the mission below a NASA contract.

The asteroid, Dimorphos, is the scale of a stadium — or the Nice Pyramid of Giza, as one scientist put it Monday — and is about 7 million miles from Earth in the intervening time. It orbits a bigger asteroid named Didymos. Neither poses a menace to our planet now or anytime within the foreseeable future.

This was only a check, NASA’s first demonstration of a possible planetary protection approach, known as a kinetic impactor. The thought is to offer a hypothetically harmful asteroid simply sufficient of a blow to change its orbital trajectory.

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Launched final November from California, the spacecraft was small, roughly the scale of a merchandising machine or golf cart. Dimorphos is slightly huge — roughly 500 ft or so in diameter, though its exact form and composition had been unknown earlier than the ultimate strategy. Scientists anticipated a plume of particles from the asteroid upon influence however no vital structural change. That is extra akin to a bug splattering on a windshield.

“This isn’t simply bowling-ball physics,” Utilized Physics Laboratory planetary scientist Nancy Chabot informed reporters. “The spacecraft’s gonna lose.”

The way it works: NASA hopes to hit an asteroid now in case we actually have to knock one away later

However even small results on an asteroid’s motion might show a planet-saver. An early collision with an asteroid, if accomplished early sufficient — say, 5 to 10 years prematurely of its projected encounter with Earth — may very well be simply sufficient to gradual it down and make it miss.

There are millions of probably hazardous asteroids that come near, or cross, the Earth’s orbital path across the solar. None is at present identified to be on a trajectory to hit the planet.

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As engineers conceived of an asteroid deflection mission, they seized on an ingenious thought that might drastically scale back the prices: Hit an asteroid “moonlet” that’s orbiting a bigger asteroid.

To detect the impact of a collision with a single asteroid orbiting the solar would have required two spacecraft, engineer Andrew Cheng informed reporters, as a result of such an asteroid is transferring at large velocity, and the influence from a small spacecraft would lead to a minimal, hard-to-detect change. A second spacecraft must be current to scrutinize the impact.

However a moonlet, like Dimorphos, orbits its bigger twin at a stately tempo. The impact of the influence ought to be extra simply detected — together with by telescopes on Earth and in area. No second spacecraft is important.

It’s going to take a minimum of a few days to inform if the DART mission succeeded in slowing down the focused asteroid, and to what diploma it did so. Telescopes on Earth and in area noticed the collision, as did a small instrument, known as a cubesat, that was deployed 15 days earlier than influence.

That is an uncommon mission in that it doesn’t contain a spacecraft making an attempt to outlive a hazardous touchdown on an alien world or proving itself operational within the tough surroundings of outer area, famous Robert Braun, head of the area exploration sector on the Utilized Physics Laboratory.

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NASA spacecraft will slam into an asteroid Monday — if all goes proper

“Right here, what we’re searching for is lack of sign,” he informed reporters earlier than the collision. “What we’re cheering for is a lack of the spacecraft.”

By Monday afternoon the engineers in Laurel had despatched their closing course corrections to the DART spacecraft, and from that time it was by itself, making closing navigational changes autonomously. The automobile was aimed straight on the bigger, brighter asteroid, however programmed to fireside thrusters that might pivot it towards the smaller asteroid when it got here into view.

Some weird eventualities couldn’t be dominated out as a result of the asteroid’s form wouldn’t be decided till the ultimate hour earlier than influence. Certainly, solely the bigger asteroid — not Dimorphos — may very well be seen within the dwell feed from the spacecraft’s digicam 90 minutes earlier than influence.

“If we had been proper on target, and it was formed like a doughnut, we’d fly proper by it,” Braun mentioned.

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Not till the ultimate minutes of DART’s journey did the spacecraft or its human operators again on Earth get an excellent have a look at Dimorphos. It wasn’t seen in any respect till about an hour earlier than influence. Even then, it was only a tiny, barely perceptible dot subsequent to its brighter twin.

There was pleasure within the Mission Operations Middle because the asteroid loomed bigger on the display screen. About 50 minutes earlier than influence, undertaking supervisor Edward Reynolds started uttering the identical phrase: “That is nominal, that is nominal” — aerospace engineering jargon for “all the pieces going precisely as deliberate,” he mentioned later.

“We’ve locked on Dimorphos,” engineer Elena Adams reported 27 minutes earlier than influence.

The digicam onboard saved snapping away. The dot grew right into a clearly spherical rock with a tough, boulder-covered floor, wanting like one thing you’d hold within the storage as a scouring device. Within the Mission Operations Middle, the engineers stood and cheered by the ultimate moments, too excited to take a seat at their consoles.

Within the final picture, Dimorphos utterly stuffed the body. DART was hitting the bull’s eye.

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Then got here a clean display screen. DART had succeeded, and ceased to exist.

“Impression confirmed for the world’s first planetary protection check mission,” NASA’s live-streamed broadcast introduced.

On the NASA feed, the company’s administrator, Invoice Nelson, declared that the mission had demonstrated expertise “to avoid wasting our planet.” Ralph Semmel, director of the Utilized Physics Laboratory, mentioned he felt an adrenaline rush as DART made a direct hit on the goal: “By no means earlier than have I been so excited to see a sign go away.”



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What Washington State’s head coach said after Gonzaga game

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What Washington State’s head coach said after Gonzaga game


Washington State men’s basketball head coach David Riley could point to a few factors that led to Gonzaga pulling away from the Cougars during the second half of Saturday night’s showdown at the McCarthey Athletic Center.

For starters, the Bulldogs’ 15-5 scoring run to start the second half certainly didn’t help the Cougs’ cause. Neither did Ryan Nembhard, who came out of the halftime break even more refreshed after sitting on the bench for the final 9:34 of the first half due to foul trouble. Turnovers and miscues on the defensive end of the floor also started to pile up for WSU, which led by six points in the first half only to trail by three at the break and fall behind by 21 in the second half while the Zags nailed 10 3-pointers and scored 20 points off 16 turnovers.

Consider Saturday night, then, a perfect storm for the Bulldogs (14-4, 5-0 WCC). Led by Graham Ike’s 21 points, Gonzaga pulled away for an 88-75 victory over its in-state rival in a thriller from the Kennel.

Here’s what Riley had to say after the game.

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On what changed for WSU in the second half:

“It was a hard-fought game, and I feel like we had it slip away from us early in that second half where we didn’t stay connected as much, and I personally didn’t do a good enough job of having us ready for the fight. They got some 50-50 balls. They got a couple offensive rebounds, just some toughness plays that second half that hurt us. And that comes down to, we have game plan stuff, we’re gonna have X’s and O’s, we’re gonna have great plays from different players and bad plays from different players, but that fight for 40 minutes, I think, was the difference, and they came out with a little more fire than us.”

On Ryan Nembhard’s impact in the second half after sitting most of the first half:

“He did a good job with their pace. I think he gets them up the floor really well. I felt like it was a lot of factors that second half, and he played a part in that and started isolating some of our bigs when we made a couple of adjustments. [Nembhard is a] good player.”

On WSU’s defensive breakdowns that led to 10 3-pointers for Gonzaga:

“A couple of execution errors. I think one of them we didn’t have a ball screen right, one of them we didn’t order our post defense right. Kind of going into the half that was our thing, when things get tough, or they throw in a 25-second possession, we got to execute all 30 seconds of the shot clock. And I think it was more just cover stuff. We didn’t have that many space cadet errors. I think it was more just kind of one guy doing something that wasn’t exactly right in coverage.”

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What Gonzaga’s Mark Few said after win vs. Washington State

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What Gonzaga’s Mark Few said after win vs. Washington State


The Gonzaga men’s basketball team pulled away from Washington State for an 88-75 victory in the first meeting between the in-state rivals in over a decade.

Graham Ike led the way with 21 points on 8-for-11 from the field, Nolan Hickman added 19 points and the Bulldogs (14-4, 5-0 WCC) earned their fifth straight win to open league play by putting the Cougars (13-5, 3-2 WCC) away early in the second half. After ending the first half on an 8-2 scoring run, the Zags came out of the second half with a sense of urgency on both ends, sparking a 15-5 scoring run to make it a double-digit margin.

Here’s what Gonzaga head coach Mark Few had to say after the game.

On what he told the team at halftime that led to the strong start to the second half:

“I just told them, ‘hey, we’re in a we’re in a battle. It’s a great game. Both teams are competing really hard, and we’re at our best when we’re in attack mode.’ And they did a great job of taking the message and I thought we really went out and turned defense into offense, and we knew that was going to be a big key for us. [The Cougars] are hard to guard, they’re big and they’re physical, and [WSU coach David Riley] does a really lot of nice stuff on on offense that exploits mismatches. But our guys battled tonight, so I was really proud of them.”

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On the team’s performance while Ryan Nembhard was on the bench for the final 9 minutes of the first half:

“They played great. I told them that in the locker room that that was huge. We haven’t really had to do that all year. And this guy [Nolan Hickman] stepped up. He was amazing tonight. I mean, seven boards … defensively in there, battling in the post. I mean, he did a lot of stuff that, as I said, he’s now, he set a high standard, so kind of be counting on that moving forward, but he and Dusty [Stromer] both really helped during that stretch and [Khalif Battle] and obviously having Ben [Gregg] and then Graham was rock solid all night.”

On the team’s effort on the defensive end of the floor in the second half:

“I thought our effort and our making plays, I thought it was definitely up there [with the best of the season], and just the physicality that it took. Because, again, they’re so much bigger than us at several of those spots. And again, you just don’t see the post-up thing like this, where your guards are getting constantly posted. But so in that way, we fought, we were physical and kind of had to navigate our way through a lot of different actions. There’s staggers and some curls and some switches and all that. For the most part, we did pretty good.”



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Washington Nationals Agree to Terms With Former All-Star Reliever

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Washington Nationals Agree to Terms With Former All-Star Reliever


The Washington Nationals have continued to invest into the pitching staff with another free agency move on Saturday.

Shared on social media, the Nationals announced that they had agreed to terms with relief pitcher Jorge Lopez on a one-year contract. That deal will be worth $3 million plus incentives per Jon Heyman.

This is the third pitcher that Washington has signed this offseason, with Michael Soroka brought in as a free agent and Trevor Williams receiving a new deal to say.

They also added another reliever, Evan Reifert, as a Rule 5 draft pick from the Tampa Bay Rays.

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Lopez made headlines last year with his infamous exit from the New York Mets. He caused a stir after a loss when he referred to himself as ‘the worst teammate on the worst team in baseball.’

For a lot of players, that might spell an end to the season. The fastball-heavy reliever was able to bounce back. He was released and then signed a minor league contract with the Chicago Cubs.

The 31-year-old came back from controversy as strong as ever, posting a 2.03 ERA over the final 26.2 innings of work.

With the loss of Kyle Finnegan, Lopez makes sense as a potential replacement at closer. He does have some closing experience, but has not been his main role for much of his career.

That season, 2022, was the year he made his first and only All-Star team.

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He is a ground ball machine that loves to force bad contact. Keeping him in a situational role could also be a smart idea, given that he struggles against lefties.

No matter how he is used, this is another good signal that the Nationals don’t want to throw any season away.



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