New York, Europe Brief News – A NASA spacecraft has successfully hit an asteroid in an unprecedented test designed to prevent potentially devastating collisions with Earth.
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos about 11 million kilometres (6.8 million miles) from Earth at about 23:00 GMT on Monday.
The mission marked humanity’s first attempt at moving another celestial body, with the goal of seeing if a large asteroid hurtling toward our planet could be successfully diverted.
The spacecraft collided with the asteroid at 15,000mph at 7.14pm EDT. Live-streamed video showed the asteroid’s rubble-strewn surface looming into focus before the spacecraft hit and cheers erupted in the mission control room.
Teams of Nasa and Johns Hopkins University scientists hugged each other after confirming Dart’s successful impact with Dimorphos.
Shortly after impact, Lori Glaze, Nasa’s planetary science division director, declared it a “new era of humankind”.
“[It’s] an era in which we potentially have the capability to protect ourselves from something like a dangerous hazardous asteroid impact,” said Glaze. “What an amazing thing. We’ve never had that capability before.”
Samson Reony, the Johns Hopkins applied physics laboratory mission commentator, was equally exuberant about the “game changing” achievement.
“This is when science, engineering and a great purpose, planetary defense, come together, and, you know, it makes a magical moment like this,” he said.
