Summary
A NASA documentary on planetary defense — the scientists and engineers who find, track, and plan how to deflect asteroids that could someday come near Earth, including the real DART mission that nudged an asteroid off its path.
Viewer safety
The idea of an asteroid hitting Earth comes up, but it's framed around detection and prevention — a problem people are working to solve — not disaster.
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Teaching resources
Discussion questions
Discussion
"Planetary Defenders" is about people whose job is to protect Earth from asteroids.
- How do scientists find and track asteroids before they get close?
- The DART mission crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid on purpose. Why?
- Why is it useful to plan for a problem long before it might happen?
Quick work-a-long
Vocabulary: asteroid, orbit, detect, deflect, mission.
Try it: Name the problem the planetary defenders are solving, then list two different ideas from the film for dealing with an asteroid. Which do you think is best, and why?