NASA
One of the most common doomsday scenarios is an asteroid crashing into Earth. That’s what (probably) killed the dinosaurs, after all. We’re not in immediate danger of getting killed by an asteroid, but NASA still tried knocking out a random passing space rock — and it was successful in doing so.
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART for short, reached its most exciting stage yesterday. The test had the aim of intercepting an asteroid called Dimorphos. The spacecraft launched by NASA was quickly zipping at 14,000 mph, until it finally struck, and redirected, the asteroid on September 26th at 7:14 PM ET.
IMPACT SUCCESS! Watch from #DARTMIssion’s DRACO Camera, as the vending machine-sized spacecraft successfully collides with asteroid Dimorphos, which is the size of a football stadium and poses no threat to Earth. pic.twitter.com/7bXipPkjWD
— NASA (@NASA) September 26, 2022
The asteroid itself wasn’t threatening Earth at all. It was actually a small asteroid that was orbiting a bigger one, Didymos, as a satellite, and while both were close to Earth, they weren’t currently heading over to destroy our planet from an…
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