NASA successfully crashes DART spacecraft into asteroid Dimorphos | Watch

NASA’s DART spacecraft crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos on September 27. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission intentionally crashed on an asteroid to test a unique defence technology.

The crash is aimed at giving Earth a defence tool against future asteroids headed our way.

“IMPACT SUCCESS! Watch from #DARTMIssion’s DRACO Camera, as the vending machine-sized spacecraft successfully collides with asteroid Dimorphos, which is the size of a football stadium and poses no threat to Earth,” NASA tweeted.

IMPACT SUCCESS! Watch from #DARTMIssion’s DRACO Camera, as the vending machine-sized spacecraft successfully collides with asteroid Dimorphos, which is the size of a football stadium and poses no threat to Earth. pic.twitter.com/7bXipPkjWD

— NASA (@NASA) September 26, 2022

The live stream showed images taken by DART’s own camera as the cube-shaped “impactor” vehicle, no bigger than a vending machine with two rectangular solar arrays, streaked into the asteroid Dimorphos, about the size of a football stadium, at around 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) some 6.8 million miles (11 million km) from Earth, Reuters reported.

DART, launched by a SpaceX rocket in November 2021, made most of its voyage under the guidance of NASA’s flight directors, with control handed over to an autonomous on-board navigation system in the final hours of the journey.

Dimorphos, about 9.6 million kilometres from Earth, is actually the sidekick of a 2,500-foot asteroid named Didymos, Greek for twin. Discovered in 1996, Didymos is spinning so fast that scientists believe it flung off material that eventually formed a moonlet. Dimorphos — roughly 525 feet across — orbits its parent body at a distance of 1.2 kilometres.

(With input from Reuters)

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