NASA’s First-Ever Planetary Defense Test
by Brian Wang from NextBigFuture.com on (#644GY)
NASA's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) targeted the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, a small body just 530 feet (160 meters) in diameter. It orbits a larger, 2,560-foot (780-meter) asteroid called Didymos. Neither asteroid poses a threat to Earth. The mission's one-way trip confirmed NASA can successfully navigate a spacecraft to intentionally collide with an asteroid to ...