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