---
title: UMD Researchers Help Launch a Planetary Defense
date: 2022-09-28T05:30:00-04:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/umd-researchers-help-launch-a-planetary-defense"
section: Articles
---
# UMD Researchers Help Launch a Planetary Defense

*September 28, 2022* — by [Chris Carroll](/author/chris-carroll)


> Astronomers, Engineers Were Key to NASA DART Mission That ‘Smacked’ Asteroid

*Getty Images 1243532361 1920x1080 — Mission and flight engineers watch the final seconds before a spacecraft slams into the rocky surface of asteroid as part of NASA's DART mission. The experiment aimed to gain knowledge about deflecting potentially dangerous asteroids and included a number of UMD faculty and staff.*

At first glance, a mission to slow down the orbit of a tiny moon around an asteroid millions of miles away might seem like an odd strategy to defend our planet. But developing our ability to knock large space rocks around could one day prove invaluable if we ever discover one is bound for a collision with Earth.

NASA’s [DART](https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart/dart-news) (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission Monday successfully launched a 1,300-pound impactor at 14,000 miles per hour, creating a cloud of dust (or ejecta) visible from Earth and presumably putting the brakes on that asteroid moon, Dimorphos, which orbits the larger Didymos, in a big way.


*UMD researchers — UMD students, faculty and staff who watched the DART impact at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory on Monday included (from left) Yun Zhang, Joe DeMartini, Carrie Holt, Harrison Agrusa, Christine Hartzell, Tony Farnham (kneeling), Ludmilla Kolokolova, Doug Hamilton, Derek Richardson, Jessica Sunshine and Julian Marohnic.*



**Sidebar note:**

Other UMD Department of Astronomy and Department of Aerospace Engineering faculty, staff and students on the [DART team](https://dart.jhuapl.edu/Team/) include:

- Harrison Agrusa Ph.D. ’22, graduate assistant (ASTR)
- Brent Barbee, lecturer (AERO)
- Tony Farnham, research scientist (ASTR)
- Douglas Hamilton, professor (ASTR)
- Christine Hartzell, associate professor (AERO)
- Carrie Holt, doctoral student (ASTR)
- Ludmilla Kolokolova, research scientist (ASTR)
- Juan Rizos, postdoctoral associate (ASTR)
- Jessica Sunshine, professor (ASTR)
- Yun Zhang, postdoctoral researcher (AERO)

Read [Maryland Engineering's article](https://eng.umd.edu/news/story/umd-researchers-dart-probe-an-initial-step-in-planetary-defense) about the DART mission.





**Topics:** [Research](https://today.umd.edu/tags/research)


**Tags:** [Aerospace Engineering](https://today.umd.edu/topic/aerospace-engineering), [Astronomy](https://today.umd.edu/topic/astronomy), [Research](https://today.umd.edu/topic/research)


**Units:** [A. James Clark School of Engineering](https://today.umd.edu/topic/james-clark-school-engineering), [College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-computer-mathematical-and-natural-sciences)