lehigh acres LCSO: Man shot by car owner protecting property The Lee County Sheriff’s Office responded to a shooting in Lehigh Acres early Saturday morning.
NORTH FORT MYERS Lee County residents wait hours for D-SNAP assistance The supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP) is at the Lee Civic Center all weekend, ready to help southwest Florida.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA First eaglet hatches in famous SWFL eagle nest Welcome E24! The third eaglet from the nest of M15 and F23 has hatched according to the Southwest Florida eagle camera.
Rock for Equality: SWFL non-profit hosts benefit concert for Palestine A Southwest Florida non-profit hosted a benefit concert on Friday night to help with humanitarian aid in Palestine.
Warm, breezy Saturday with a few showers possible The Weather Authority is forecasting a breezy, warm weekend in store across Southwest Florida, with the chance of a few showers, particularly on Saturday.
CAPE CORAL Active investigation underway in South Cape Coral Cape Coral police are investigating at a home on Southwest 49th Terrace in South Cape Coral early Saturday morning.
16 transported after 2 airboats crash in Collier County According to the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, two airboats crashed south of U.S. 41 east between mile markers 74 and 75, leaving well over a dozen people injured.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA New bill filed: Auto shop and law enforcement must work together to solve hit-and-run crashes There could be new detectives on the block, located in your nearest auto shop. A new state bill aims at trying to stop hit-and-run drivers from getting away.
CAPE CORAL New leash on life; Cape Coral shelter dog beats cancer with drug being tested for humans A drug now being studied in human trials to kill cancerous tumors, is already approved and helping animals.
CAPE CORAL City of Cape Coral planning a new interchange with I-75 The city of Cape Coral is in the early stages of planning a new interchange with I-75, an idea that has been discussed for more than a decade.
Tracking invasive species after hurricanes Hurricanes Helene and Milton didn’t just bring wind and rain, they brought new threats to southwest Florida’s ecosystem.
PUNTA GORDA Woman in Punta Gorda shooting charged with 2nd degree murder A woman in a homicide investigation on Nasturtium Drive in Punta Gorda has been charged with 2nd-degree murder.
Lee County mother continuing fight to get children a bus stop The school district already told her she lives too close to the school to qualify for a bus route but she has not given up.
NORTH NAPLES Grant Thornton Invitational returns to Tiburon Golf Club Stars on the PGA and LPGA Tours are back in Southwest Florida for the Grant Thornton Invitational at Tiburon Golf Club.
FORT MYERS Black Flag brings classic punk energy to The Ranch in Fort Myers Legendary punk band Black Flag made their mark in Southwest Florida during the Fort Myers stop of their “First Four Years” tour.
lehigh acres LCSO: Man shot by car owner protecting property The Lee County Sheriff’s Office responded to a shooting in Lehigh Acres early Saturday morning.
NORTH FORT MYERS Lee County residents wait hours for D-SNAP assistance The supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP) is at the Lee Civic Center all weekend, ready to help southwest Florida.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA First eaglet hatches in famous SWFL eagle nest Welcome E24! The third eaglet from the nest of M15 and F23 has hatched according to the Southwest Florida eagle camera.
Rock for Equality: SWFL non-profit hosts benefit concert for Palestine A Southwest Florida non-profit hosted a benefit concert on Friday night to help with humanitarian aid in Palestine.
Warm, breezy Saturday with a few showers possible The Weather Authority is forecasting a breezy, warm weekend in store across Southwest Florida, with the chance of a few showers, particularly on Saturday.
CAPE CORAL Active investigation underway in South Cape Coral Cape Coral police are investigating at a home on Southwest 49th Terrace in South Cape Coral early Saturday morning.
16 transported after 2 airboats crash in Collier County According to the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, two airboats crashed south of U.S. 41 east between mile markers 74 and 75, leaving well over a dozen people injured.
SOUTHWEST FLORIDA New bill filed: Auto shop and law enforcement must work together to solve hit-and-run crashes There could be new detectives on the block, located in your nearest auto shop. A new state bill aims at trying to stop hit-and-run drivers from getting away.
CAPE CORAL New leash on life; Cape Coral shelter dog beats cancer with drug being tested for humans A drug now being studied in human trials to kill cancerous tumors, is already approved and helping animals.
CAPE CORAL City of Cape Coral planning a new interchange with I-75 The city of Cape Coral is in the early stages of planning a new interchange with I-75, an idea that has been discussed for more than a decade.
Tracking invasive species after hurricanes Hurricanes Helene and Milton didn’t just bring wind and rain, they brought new threats to southwest Florida’s ecosystem.
PUNTA GORDA Woman in Punta Gorda shooting charged with 2nd degree murder A woman in a homicide investigation on Nasturtium Drive in Punta Gorda has been charged with 2nd-degree murder.
Lee County mother continuing fight to get children a bus stop The school district already told her she lives too close to the school to qualify for a bus route but she has not given up.
NORTH NAPLES Grant Thornton Invitational returns to Tiburon Golf Club Stars on the PGA and LPGA Tours are back in Southwest Florida for the Grant Thornton Invitational at Tiburon Golf Club.
FORT MYERS Black Flag brings classic punk energy to The Ranch in Fort Myers Legendary punk band Black Flag made their mark in Southwest Florida during the Fort Myers stop of their “First Four Years” tour.
This illustration made available by Johns Hopkins APL and NASA depicts NASA’s DART probe, foreground right, and Italian Space Agency’s (ASI) LICIACube, bottom right, at the Didymos system before impact with the asteroid Dimorphos, left. DART is expected to zero in on the asteroid Monday, Sept. 26, 2022, intent on slamming it head-on at 14,000 mph. The impact should be just enough to nudge the asteroid into a slightly tighter orbit around its companion space rock. (Steve Gribben/Johns Hopkins APL/NASA via AP) In the first-of-its kind, save-the-world experiment, NASA is about to clobber a small, harmless asteroid millions of miles away. A spacecraft named Dart will zero in on the asteroid Monday, intent on slamming it head-on at 14,000 mph (22,500 kph). The impact should be just enough to nudge the asteroid into a slightly tighter orbit around its companion space rock — demonstrating that if a killer asteroid ever heads our way, we’d stand a fighting chance of diverting it. “This is stuff of science-fiction books and really corny episodes of “StarTrek” from when I was a kid, and now it’s real,” NASA program scientist Tom Statler said Thursday. Cameras and telescopes will watch the crash, but it will take days or even weeks to find out if it actually changed the orbit. The $325 million planetary defense test began with Dart’s launch last fall. ASTEROID TARGET The asteroid with the bull’s-eye on it is Dimorphos, about 7 million miles (9.6 million kilometers) from Earth. It is actually the puny sidekick of a 2,500-foot (780-meter) asteroid named Didymos, Greek for twin. Discovered in 1996, Didymos is spinning so fast that scientists believe it flung off material that eventually formed a moonlet. Dimorphos — roughly 525 feet (160 meters) across — orbits its parent body at a distance of less than a mile (1.2 kilometers). “This really is about asteroid deflection, not disruption,” said Nancy Chabot, a planetary scientist and mission team leader at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, which is managing the effort. “This isn’t going to blow up the asteroid. It isn’t going to put it into lots of pieces.” Rather, the impact will dig out a crater tens of yards (meters) in size and hurl some 2 million pounds (1 million kilograms) of rocks and dirt into space. NASA insists there’s a zero chance either asteroid will threaten Earth — now or in the future. That’s why the pair was picked. DART, THE IMPACTOR The Johns Hopkins lab took a minimalist approach in developing Dart — short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test — given that it’s essentially a battering ram and faces sure destruction. It has a single instrument: a camera used for navigating, targeting and chronicling the final action. Believed to be essentially a rubble pile, Dimorphos will emerge as a point of light an hour before impact, looming larger and larger in the camera images beamed back to Earth. Managers are confident Dart won’t smash into the larger Didymos by mistake. The spacecraft’s navigation is designed to distinguish between the two asteroids and, in the final 50 minutes, target the smaller one. The size of a small vending machine at 1,260 pounds (570 kilograms), the spacecraft will slam into roughly 11 billion pounds (5 billion kilograms) of asteroid. “Sometimes we describe it as running a golf cart into a Great Pyramid,” said Chabot. Unless Dart misses — NASA puts the odds of that happening at less than 10% — it will be the end of the road for Dart. If it goes screaming past both space rocks, it will encounter them again in a couple years for Take 2. SAVING EARTH Little Dimorphos completes a lap around big Didymos every 11 hours and 55 minutes. The impact by Dart should shave about 10 minutes off that. Although the strike itself should be immediately apparent, it could take a few weeks or more to verify the moonlet’s tweaked orbit. Cameras on Dart and a mini tagalong satellite will capture the collision up close. Telescopes on all seven continents, along with the Hubble and Webb space telescopes and NASA’s asteroid-hunting Lucy spacecraft, may see a bright flash as Dart smacks Dimorphos and sends streams of rock and dirt cascading into space. The observatories will track the pair of asteroids as they circle the sun, to see if Dart altered Dimorphos’ orbit. In 2024, a European spacecraft named Hera will retrace Dart’s journey to measure the impact results. Although the intended nudge should change the moonlet’s position only slightly, that will add up to a major shift over time, according to Chabot. “So if you were going to do this for planetary defense, you would do it five, 10, 15, 20 years in advance in order for this technique to work,” she said. Even if Dart misses, the experiment still will provide valuable insight, said NASA program executive Andrea Riley. “This is why we test. We want to do it now rather than when there’s an actual need,” she said. ASTEROID MISSIONS GALORE Planet Earth is on an asteroid-chasing roll. NASA has close to a pound (450 grams) of rubble collected from asteroid Bennu headed to Earth. The stash should arrive next September. Japan was the first to retrieve asteroid samples, accomplishing the feat twice. China hopes to follow suit with a mission launching in 2025. NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, meanwhile, is headed to asteroids near Jupiter, after launching last year. Another spacecraft, Near-Earth Asteroid Scout, is loaded into NASA’s new moon rocket awaiting liftoff; it will use a solar sail to fly past a space rock that’s less than 60 feet (18 meters) next year. In the next few years, NASA also plans to launch a census-taking telescope to identify hard-to-find asteroids that could pose risks. One asteroid mission is grounded while an independent review board weighs its future. NASA’s Psyche spacecraft should have launched this year to a metal-rich asteroid between Mars and Jupiter, but the team couldn’t test the flight software in time. HOLLYWOOD’S TAKE Hollywood has churned out dozens of killer-space-rock movies over the decades, including 1998′s “Armageddon” which brought Bruce Willis to Cape Canaveral for filming, and last year’s “Don’t Look Up” with Leonardo DiCaprio leading an all-star cast. NASA’s planetary defense officer, Lindley Johnson, figures he’s seen them all since 1979′s “Meteor,” his personal favorite “since Sean Connery played me.” While some of the sci-fi films are more accurate than others, he noted, entertainment always wins out. The good news is that the coast seems clear for the next century, with no known threats. Otherwise, “it would be like the movies, right?” said NASA’s science mission chief Thomas Zurbuchen. What’s worrisome, though, are the unknown threats. Fewer than half of the 460-foot (140-meter) objects have been confirmed, with millions of smaller but still-dangerous objects zooming around. “These threats are real, and what makes this time special, is we can do something about it,” Zurbuchen said. Not by blowing up an asteroid as Willis’ character did — that would be a last, last-minute resort — or by begging government leaders to take action as DiCaprio’s character did in vain. If time allows, the best tactic could be to nudge the menacing asteroid out of our way, like Dart.