asteroid DART impact

[ad_1] A spacecraft that plowed into a small, harmless asteroid millions of miles away succeeded in shifting its orbit, NASA said in announcing the results of its save-the-world test. The space agency attempted the test two weeks ago to see if in the future a killer rock could be nudged out of Earth's way. “This mission shows that NASA is trying to be ready for whatever the universe throws at us,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said during a briefing at the space agency's headquarters in Washington. The Dart spacecraft carved a crater into the asteroid Dimorphos on Sept. 26, hurling debris out into space and creating a cometlike trail of dust and rubble stretching several thousand miles (kilometers). It took consecutive nights of telescope observations from Chile and South Afric...

[ad_1] NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft intentionally crashed into Asteroid Dimorphos. An asteroid which was deliberately smashed by NASA's DART spacecraft has left a trail of debris stretching thousands of kilometres, a new image captured by a telescope in Chile shows. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft intentionally crashed into Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet in the double-asteroid system of Didymos, on September 26. This was the first planetary defence test in which an impact of a spacecraft attempted to modify the orbit of an asteroid. Two days after DART's impact, astronomers used the 4.1-meter Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope in Chile to capture the vast plume of dust and debris blasted from the asteroid's surf...

Tag: asteroid DART impact

Smashing success: NASA asteroid strike results in big nudge in save-the-world test

Asteroid Dimorphos, struck by NASA spacecraft, leaves 10000 km debris trail