![]() The pair of asteroids are no threat to Earth but were used as a test because they are close enough to be seen by telescopes.ĭART used a "smart navigation system" developed by Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory to lock on to Dimorphos and direct itself there.Ībout 7,000 miles out Didymos, the larger asteroid, could be seen in the images from DRACO as a white dot in the vast blackness of space. ![]() Lori Glaze, Nasa's planetary science division director, said: "We are embarking on a new era of humankind."ĭimorphos orbits around another asteroid called Didymos, which is five times bigger, about every 12 hours. In the early hours of Tuesday morning DART, which was about the size of a large fridge and moving at 14,000mph, ploughed into an asteroid called Dimorphos, which is about the size of a football stadium.Īt mission control in Maryland, engineers high-fived and an announcer declared: "We have impact in the name of planetary defence." The historic test, which has been compared to the plot of the Hollywood movie 'Armageddon', involved sending a $325 million spacecraft called DART on a 10-month kamikaze journey. It was intended to prove that it is possible to change the course of any future doomsday space rock threatening to obliterate Earth. ![]() ![]() The mission was the first attempt to alter the movement of a celestial body. Nasa has successfully crashed a spaceship into an asteroid in the first ever "planetary defence test", clearing the way to perhaps one day save humanity from extinction. ![]()
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