For the first time in history, a spacecraft from Earth has crashed into an asteroid to test a way to save our planet from extinction.
The spacecraft, NASA’s Double Asteroid Rendezvous Test (DART) probe, slammed into a small asteroid 7 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth tonight (Sept. 26) in what the U.S. space agency has billed as the world’s first planetary defense test. The goal: to change the orbit of the space rock — called Dimorphos — around its larger asteroid parent Didymos enough to prove humanity could deflect a dangerous asteroid if one was headed for Earth.
“As far as we can tell, our first planetary defense test was a success,” said Elena Adams, DART’s mission systems engineer here at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL), after the successful crash. “I think Earthlings should sleep better. Definitely, I will.”
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