00:03the team is standing just recognizing this moment years in the making it is
00:09really nice to see them relax a little bit get off from those computers that
00:13they've been glued to and just appreciate this moment that's come yeah
00:17and they've earned this it's just great to see them there this is so cool Lori
00:24we hit another major milestone we are now two minutes and a half from impact
00:29and smart nav has stopped maneuvering the spacecraft dart is now coasting
00:33toward dimorphos and we hope into the history books absolutely this will be
00:39I'm sure you've heard it many times tonight humanity's first ever ever
00:45attempt at trying to move another celestial body and also our first
00:49attempt ever to execute a mission and you have sole purpose of planetary defense
00:54so what an exciting exciting time yeah and I'm starting to see dimorphos start to
01:00come into view there you can see it's starting to take shape I'm starting to
01:03see individual boulders on Didymos unbelievable unbelievable clarity of
01:10images there hosting on in our projected miss distance is going to be about 17 meters
01:14all right all eyes on this event space telescopes ground telescopes from every continent on earth yeah yeah all right
01:32two minutes out does not look like one single rock to me oh boy we're getting close
01:3814,000 miles per hour
01:4114,000 miles per hour and remember you know 45 minutes ago 55 minutes ago we couldn't even resolve this
01:50this object in space and now we are you can see us zeroing in right on target and we're now
01:58dropping the clock and we'll go by loss of signal to confirm impact right
02:04yes imagine we'll get that loss of signal and then we'll hear from lena adams again
02:08um letting us know um letting us know i feel like we'll know i feel like that'll be a crystal
02:14clear
02:16signal i think so i think we're starting to see more uh more resolution in fact look at that didymos
02:24has even
02:25come out of the view we're now just seeing dimorphous this is remarkable stuff
02:33oh my goodness look at that looks like control system settling down angular rates look really good
02:38i think we're going to get the investigation team some good pictures
02:44wow
02:46no no come on we can do better than that
02:51starting to see those individual boulders there you can see shadows
02:54almost 30 seconds in fact it's amazing guys oh my goodness look at that unbelievable yeah
03:07looks to me like we're headed straight in
03:16oh my gosh oh wow yeah oh my goodness yeah seven six wow four three two one
03:30oh my gosh oh wow awaiting visual confirmation
03:40all right
03:43we got it waiting waiting
03:48and we have impact a family for humanity in the name of planetary defense
03:54whoo fantastic oh fantastic oh fantastic oh what what a moment very few words can really capture this moment this
04:08is
04:08it's beautiful to watch
04:19what a team what a team and what an accomplishment team a few weeks ago they had their last dress
04:25rehearsal
04:26they were getting emotional at the dress rehearsal they're like this is this is crazy we're getting
04:30emotional this is not the real thing i can only imagine what they are feeling right now yes well you
04:38can see them there on screen they're all pretty excited wow
04:45hearing impact the curtains close on draco feed
04:48that raw joy from the team years of hard work and the weight of expectation lifted off their shoulders this
04:55is this is amazing
04:58fantastic
05:06this is beautiful and laurie really this is a huge moment for the mission lots more work
05:14needs to happen in the days weeks absolutely now you know as i always say it's one of my favorite
05:19missions
05:19now is when the science starts it just starts now now that we've
05:24impacted now we're going to see for real how effective we were we're going to train all of those ground
05:30-based
05:31telescopes on the didymos dimorphous system and we're going to make measurements that will help us
05:39determine just how what its orbit looks like now relative to what it was before so it's going to be
05:45great very
05:46cool all right all right this is when science engineering and a great purpose planetary defense
05:53come together and you know it makes a magical moment like this yeah absolutely and you can see so many
06:01people there that have made this happen uh the team of apl engineers um that have really
06:08poured their souls into this mission laurie any last words to mark this historic moment
06:15oh we're we're embarking on a new era of humankind um an era in which
06:24we potentially have the capability to protect ourself from something like a dangerous hazardous asteroid
06:32impact what an amazing thing we've never had that capability before thank you so much laurie those
06:37are poignant last words tahira history has been made back to you
06:45wow i mean what an exciting day for the dart team and in in case you're keeping score humanity
06:54one asteroids zero now i'm here with nancy chabot dart coordination lead nancy talk about a moment to
07:03catch on camera what is going through your head right now i mean i'm just thinking wow that was amazing
07:09wasn't it i mean those images you just got closer and closer and sort of we've been planning for
07:14this moment we've been talking about it for years at apl here we've been working on this since 2015
07:19and i knew i've been talking this is the images that we're going to see and they're going to be
07:23spectacular and i think even then they exceeded my expectations of just zooming in like that and uh
07:29you know it really is just such the team accomplishment and to get to this moment over so many years
07:34and i don't have to talk about it as coming anymore it's happened now we haven't done this
07:39it's happened and it is just incredible that as humans like we have done this we did this
07:45and nancy do you have anything you'd like to say to the teams who made tonight possible oh i mean
07:51i don't need to say anything to the teams because i know everybody like me is really proud to be
07:55part of this right proud of this thing that we've been working on for years you know and even before
08:002015 internationally people wanted to do this people wanted to take this first test and then we
08:05finally did partners across the united states we have actually uh 28 countries represented on our
08:11investigation team of scientists telescopes on all seven continents everybody doing their part
08:15to make this moment happen um i know i'm a i'm really honored to be on this team and i
08:22know other
08:22people on the team feel the same way as you should nancy and i mean there's a lot to celebrate
08:27here
08:28tonight and so now that we have confirmed impact can you let us know what's next for this mission
08:35well i mean i think um i'm still taking a moment here because this is a big deal
08:41and we and this was a really hard technology demonstration to hit a small asteroid we've
08:46never seen before and do it in such spectacular fashion um but i know other scientists on the team
08:52like me are already pointing at those images being like did you see that boulder did you see that
08:56smooth area did you see the shape what does that mean and lychee cube is like flying by right about
09:02now their close approach like taking images and they're storing them and we'll get those in the
09:06next days telescopes here and in space are looking they're looking at the brightening of the rock that's
09:11thrown off from that spectacular collision that we saw and this is going to go on for weeks and so
09:16so there's still a lot of excitement to come but uh nothing to take away from this moment
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