Bull’s-eye: NASA’s DART craft successfully changed the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos by colliding into the rocky body two weeks ago, according to the space agency.
The test shows humanity has the capability to stop an asteroid from hitting the planet, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said in a Tuesday press conference (Opens in a new window). “If an Earth-threatening asteroid was discovered, and we can see it far enough away, this technique could be used to deflect it,” he added.
The DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) was a spacecraft about the size of a refrigerator. When it collided with Dimorphos on September 26th, it was traveling at 14,000 miles per hour, which caused a noticeable impact that telescopes and radar images were able to capture.
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