NASA and the European Space Agency have teamed-up to protect humanity from near Earth objects and potential, dangerous killer asteroids and meteors headed for Earth and they're doing it with a new asteroid targeting mission.

ESA announced it's already started initial design work for the Asteroid Impact Mission that will test new technologies for future deep space missions involving investigative planetary defense methods.

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With a new asteroid defense plan on hand, ESA will then carry out deep space missions to the binary asteroid system of Didymos. The mission will target a certain asteroid moon called Didymoon, which is predicted to arrive some 11 million kilometers from Earth in 2022.

ESA will study the asteroid using high resolution visual mapping along with thermal and radar mapping of Didymoon. The space agency will then deploy a lander on the asteroid.

ESA announced that AIM will focus on consolidating rich scientific bounty and information that will provide valuable insights about the formation of the solar system. This breakthrough mission will also prepare humanity for future killer asteroids that might crash into the Earth.

Along with AIM, NASA will also deploy a Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) in 2022. It will launch a probe that will crash straight into the surface of the asteroid moon, Didymoon.

Mission manager Ian Carnelli of ESA said the results of these two missions will allow laboratory impact models to be calibrated on a larger scale to fully understand how a real asteroid will react to this type of energy inflicted upon it.

Apart from this, DART's mission is to shift Didymoon's orbit. This will mark the first time any human activity changed the dynamics of a solar system object in a measurable manner.

Ultimately, ESA's AIM and NASA's DART programs will serve as asteroid defense strategies in the future. With these missions, humanity will gain pivotal insights about what kind of force is needed to redirect any kind of asteroid headed for Earth that might wipe out life as we know it.

TagsNASA DART, ESA AIM, Asteroid Redirect Mission, asteroids, asteroid headed for Earth, NASA and ESA Plans to Shoot an Asteroid Headed for Earth in 2022, didymoon