For the first time in the history of humanity, we’ve successfully crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid for planetary defense.
Monday, NASA was able to slam the DART spacecraft into an asteroid called Dimorphos as the agency looks to study its effects into a potential breakthrough in planetary defense that until now we’ve only seen in movies.
The spacecraft, which launched back in November of 2021, hit its target going about 13,421 miles per hour.
Although the DART spacecraft is roughly 100 times smaller than the Dimorphos asteroid so its destruction was obviously out of the question, scientists are hoping the collision changed the object’s speed and trajectory in space.
Plus the images of the asteroid’s surface just before impact are incredible…
As far as where we go from here, NASA along with other ground-based observatories will continue to monitor Dimorphos and the effect DARTs impact had on it. Additionally, the European Space Agency’s Hera mission will launch in 2024 and further investigate tonight’s impact.