Smash hit – NASA’s DART ( Double Asteroid Redirection Test) | 15th October 2022 | UPSC Daily Editorial Analysis

What are asteroids?

• Asteroids (aka minor planets) are large, rocky bodies that orbit the Sun. They range from a few to hundreds of metres in diameter.
• Any fragment of an asteroid that survives landing on Earth becomes known as a meteorite.
  Most asteroids in our solar system are found in the main asteroid belt, a region between Mars and Jupiter.
• But they can also hang out in other locations around the solar system. For example, some asteroids orbit the Sun in a path that takes them near Earth.

Asteroid and Dinosaurs:

• Sixty-six million years ago, dinosaurs had the ultimate bad day. With a devastating asteroid impact, a reign that had lasted 180 million years was abruptly ended.
• The impact site, Chicxulub crater, is centred on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.
• The asteroid is thought to have been between 10 and 15 kilometres wide, but the velocity of its collision caused the creation of a much larger crater, 150 kilometres in diameter – the second-largest crater on the planet.

Lonar Crater:

• Lonar Lake, also known as Lonar crater, is a notified National Geo-heritage Monument,  saline, soda lake, located at Lonar in Buldhana district, Maharashtra, India.
• Lonar Lake is an astrobleme created by a meteorite impact during the Pleistocene Epoch. 
• It is one of only four known hyper-velocity impact craters in basaltic rock anywhere on Earth.