A scientist helps save the world from asteroids. What would the Midrash say?
Addressing Boston’s Vilna Shul as part of its Lifesavers Speaker Series, Dr. Nancy Chabot shows how collaboration in the emerging field of planetary defense proves a rabbinic adage
BOSTON — Examples abound of planetary catastrophe from asteroid impact — whether real-life (i.e., the extinction of the dinosaurs) or fictional (the recent “Don’t Look Up” or “Armageddon”). But not many people can say they’ve done something to prevent such a disaster.
Dr. Nancy Chabot is among that select few. Currently a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Chabot was the coordination lead on an innovative NASA project — the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART.
On September 26, 2022, with over 1 million people watching worldwide on NASA TV, DART deflected an asteroid for the first time in human history. The asteroid is called Dimorphos, and it resides 7 million miles from Earth in the Didymos asteroid system, which orbits the sun.
This month, in another first-of-its-kind undertaking, the European Space Agency will launch a probe from Florida to visit Didymos and examine the status of the asteroid post-impact, with data expected in 2027.
Called Hera, the spacecraft has a scheduled launch date of October 7 — a poignant day for many Israelis and Jews around the world. According to NASA, the goals of Hera include investigating the impact crater DART left on Dimorphos while analyzing other aspects of the asteroid such as its interior.
“Probably 95 percent of the world has no idea someone is working on saving them from asteroids. That doesn’t make it any less powerful,” Chabot reflected.
Dimorphos, it should be noted, was not life-threatening, but rather represented a trial run against a far-off target. Yet the test vindicated not only DART’s effectiveness if it’s ever needed in the future but also the emerging field of planetary defense.
And there’s a Jewish dimension: If, as the Midrash states, to save a life is akin to rescuing the entire world, then what is the spiritual equivalent to rescuing the entire world? This question was used to promote a talk this past spring by Chabot at the Vilna Shul, an immigrant-era synagogue turned Jewish cultural center in Boston.
One takeaway from Chabot’s talk: Saving the world means international cooperation and coordination.
“This was a global event for planetary defense,” she said before a hybrid audience. “It brought everyone together — five dozen telescopes on all seven continents, including Antarctica.”
The eight-year DART project involved more than 300 scientists representing 29 countries and just over 100 institutions, one of which was Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science.
DART, Chabot said, “gave me hope every day to be working on something bigger than myself.” She called it “just the start, the first step in a technology to help protect our planet from asteroids.”
She returned to the theme of working for the greater good during the question and answer session when she responded to an inquiry from Dalit Horn, the executive director of the Vilna Shul.
“The scientific team, everybody who built the spacecraft, our partners across the country and around the world… a lot of us took a lot of pride working on something that is so future-looking, trying to create that future you want to live in,” Chabot said, describing DART as “more than anything I could just do on my own.”
Chabot was an apt choice for the Vilna Shul’s Lifesavers Speaker Series. Past speakers have included documentary filmmakers, a former slave, and a previously incarcerated man who was exonerated. This was the first time the series has featured a scientist working on planetary defense.
It was also a first-time appearance at the Vilna Shul for Chabot. A former Catholic school student growing up in Los Angeles, Chabot described herself as mostly non-practicing these days. She expressed admiration for the historic nature of the Vilna Shul, founded in 1919 as a synagogue for an immigrant Jewish congregation on Beacon Hill in Boston. It is enjoying a successful second life as a center for Jewish culture.
Outer space was the theme of the evening, including the dessert options. Half-moon cookies, that staple of Jewish baking, took on an extra significance next to the galaxy brownies. The Vilna Shul’s director of arts and culture, Elyse Winick, put together a playlist of Jewish and Israeli songs referencing the cosmos in some way. One was an especially poignant choice: “Zemer Nugeh,” a Hebrew love song played by the late Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon on the ill-fated Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003.
Attendees at the Vilna Shul event got to experience a you-are-there retelling of the DART mission from Chabot, who brought plenty of images. Reflecting the international character of the project, an Italian-made, briefcase-sized spacecraft called LICIACube accompanied the mission and took photos.
There was plenty of drama to capture on camera. DART consisted of a boxlike spacecraft equipped with a camera of its own and powered by solar energy. With a price tag of $326 million, it launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California in late 2021, with help from Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
As Chabot explained, asteroids come in different sizes and consequently, different threat levels. Topping the list in both categories are those 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) in diameter or larger. The bad news is that they can cause mass extinction events, but the good news is that not only are they rare, but 95 percent have been identified and ruled out as a threat for the time being.
Down the list is some worrying news: Asteroids around 150 meters (roughly 500 feet) in diameter pose less of an overall threat but can still cause damage on a regional scale that would be disastrous in a heavily populated area. Like their larger counterparts, these asteroids are also rare. However, fewer of them have been detected — under 50%. It was just such an asteroid — Dimorphos — that DART was sent against.
The goal was not to blow up the asteroid, a la the 1998 Bruce Willis blockbuster “Armageddon.”
“Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best,” Chabot told The Times of Israel in a pre-talk interview in the Vilna Shul’s upstairs sanctuary.
Through a process called kinetic impact, “we ram a spacecraft into the asteroid at high speed and nudge the asteroid ever so slightly,” she said. “The whole idea is that it will not break into a bunch of pieces… It’s no longer on a collision course but existing peacefully in space.”
As she told the audience downstairs, the day of the test was full of suspense.
DART’s autonomous navigation had to turn on, which it did, four hours prior to impact. The spacecraft, now self-flying, had to detect which of the two asteroids was Dimorphos. Once it did so, at 17,000 miles away, there were just 73 minutes before impact.
With less than an hour to go, the spacecraft began firing its thrusters to intercept the asteroid. Up to the final seconds, observers could see the surface of the asteroid. Then came the collision, which deflected the asteroid, destroyed the spacecraft and delighted Chabot.
“It was hard to believe it was real,” she told The Times of Israel. “Years go into this moment. I was glued to the screen… It was hard to go to sleep for a few days.”
After the talk, the Vilna Shul’s Winick reflected on the importance the sages place on saving a life.
“I think Nancy did address it,” Winick told The Times of Israel, “when she was speaking about the type of cooperation necessary to get the job done… being part of something larger than you, really making a difference. That’s been the whole idea of the Lifesavers Speaker Series… it’s really about people who are making a difference, making other people’s lives better, making the world a better place.”
The Earth can now rest assured that its nations can come together to protect the lives of everyone on the planet. “Search, detection and tracking are going to be the cornerstone,” Chabot told the audience. “We’re all here on this planet together.”
She, and many others, have their eye on one particular asteroid expected to pass relatively close to the Earth in 2029: Apophis, which is about twice the size of Dimorphos.
“It’s not going to hit the Earth,” Chabot said, “though it’s going to be quite an event: It’s also on Friday the 13th. You can’t make this stuff up.”
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