NASA Plans to Crash Spacecraft into an Asteroid

On Monday, NASA launched a small spacecraft into the atmosphere to crash into an asteroid. They sent up the spacecraft as part of a Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which was used to determine if a spacecraft could handle such a hit to protect Earth from potentially dangerous asteroids in the future.

NASA is working on a technique called the kinetic impactor, which would send a spacecraft up to hit an asteroid just hard enough to throw off its orbit. The spacecraft sent up hit asteroid Dimorphos, which is roughly 500 feet wide, while the craft was approximately the size of a vending machine. Scientists expect the spacecraft hitting the asteroid was comparable to a bug hitting a car windshield. Despite how insignificant the size of the spacecraft sounds, even the slightest movement of an asteroid from its path could potentially save the world.