NASA’s DART mission proves it can save the planet from killer asteroids
A close-up of asteroid Dimorphos with a digital chalk outline of where DART crashed into it. | Image: NASA / Johns Hopkins APL Remember last September when NASA crashed a spaceship into an asteroid to see what would happen? Well, an investigation team led by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL) released a paper confirming that the successful Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission wasn't just for fun; it proves that humanity can deflect asteroids and also actually save the planet.
NASA outlined the conclusion in a new blog post on Wednesday, explaining that the kinetic impactor" technique, which APL writer Ajai Raj jokingly defines as smashing a thing into another thing," could indeed be used as an effective means of planetary defense.
These findings add to our fundamental understanding of asteroids and build a foundation for how humanity can...