A Nasa spacecraft slammed into a distant asteroid at hypersonic speed early on Tuesday in the world's first test of planetary defence.
Nasa’s Dart spacecraft prior to impact at the Didymos binary asteroid system showed in this undated illustration handout. Nasa/Johns Hopkins/successfully slammed into a distant asteroid at hypersonic speed early on Tuesday in the world’s first test of a planetary defence system, designed to prevent a potential doomsday meteorite collision with Earth.
The US$330-million mission, some seven years in development, was devised to determine if a spacecraft is capable of changing the trajectory of an asteroid through sheer kinetic force, nudging it off course just enough to keep Earth out of harm’s way. Cheers erupted from the control room as second-by-second images of the target asteroid, captured by Dart’s onboard camera, grew larger and ultimately filled the TV screen of Nasa’s live webcast just before the signal was lost, confirming the spacecraft had crashed into Dimorphos.
Asteroid moonlet Dimorphos as seen by the Dart spacecraft 11 seconds before impact. Nasa/Johns Hopkins APL The Dart team said it expects to shorten the orbital path of Dimorphos by 10 minutes but would consider at least 73 seconds a success, proving the exercise as a viable technique to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth — if one were ever discovered.
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